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THE STORY OF 

MY UNCLE TOBY. 


o-Or^OO- 




“ I think highly of Sterne — that is, the first part of Tristram 
Shandy ; * * the characters of Trim and the two Shandies are 
delightful.” — Coleridge’s Table-Talk. 


THE STORY OF 


MY UNCLE TOBY \ &c„ 


NEWLY ARRANGED. 


BY 

PERCY FITZGERALD, M.A, 

AUTHOR OP “A LIFE OF STERNE,” “BELLA DONNA,” 
ETC., ETC. 



NEW YORK 


SCRIBNER, WELFORD AND CO. 
1871. 



t£3 


486565 

N.4,‘36 


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LIFE OF LAURENCE STERNE. 


HE life of one who was a clergyman and 
prebendary in a cathedral town, a writer 
of sermons and odd romances, and a student 
of old books, would not seem to promise 
much that was exciting or adventurous. Yet, the 
life of Laurence Sterne has an unexpected flavour of 
romance and incident ; which, from his cradle literally 
to his grave, dashes his life with an oddity and 
eccentricity, that . only too faithfully reflects the 
extravagance of his Tristram. When a child he fell 
into a mill race, and was carried under the wheel, his 
life being saved by almost a miracle ; and when he 
died his remains were snatched from the grave by 
resurrection men and sold for dissection. 

An Archbishop of York, after being sorely perse- 
cuted in the days of Cromwell, left behind him a 
large family ; the eldest of whom, Simon Sterne, was 
established at Elvington, in Yorkshire. Roger Sterne, 
youngest son of this squire, and father of the famous 
Laurence, was put into the army, and, like my uncle 
Toby, had nothing in the world but his commission 
to start him in life. 

His regiment, the thirty-fourth, took its share in 
Marlborough’s wars; and in 1711, during the campaign, 
the young officer married a Mrs. Agnes Herbert, 

A 





ii LIFE OF LAURENCE STERNE. 

widow of a captain of good family, and daughter 
besides of a notorious army contractor and money 
lender, in whose debt the officer was. This poor lady was 
destined to have an unhappy time of it, following her 
husband from quarter to quarter, encumbered with her 
young children. On coming home to her father’s father, 
at Clonmell, his famous son Laurence was born, on 
November 24th, 1713. And as if to mark the occasion 
in the most dismal fashion, the regiment was “broke” 
on that very day, and the officers cast adrift upon 
the world. Later it was re-established under Colonel 
Chudleigh ; and then commenced for the family, 
steadily increasing up to seven, a series of disastrous 
wanderings all over England and Ireland, with peril, 
shipwreck, and many hardships on the long journeys ; 
the young family was much thinned by death. 
About the year 1724, Laurence was taken by his 
father to the Free School, at Halifax, where, under 
the care of an able master, Mr. Lister, he remained 
till he was nineteen ; being all but adopted by the 
officer’s elder brother, Squire Richard Sterne, of 
Elvington. Three years later, his father and the 
regiment embarked for the siege of Gibraltar. When 
quarrelling with a Captain Philips, (more probably 
Philpotts, as an officer of that name was in his corps), 
he was run through the body, and died in consequence 
at Jamaica, in the year 1731. A goose was the cause 
of this fatal difference. Though he survived the 
immediate effects of the wound, it wore away his 
health ; “and when he was sent to Jamaica,” says his 
son in an affectionate passage, which shows that he 
had heart, and tenderly recalled the father from whom, 
with boyish delight, he had heard the story of the 
Flanders wars — “he soon fell by the country fever, 
which took away his senses first and made a child of 
him ; and then, in a month or two, walking about 
continually without complaining, till the moment he 
sat down in an arm-chair, and breathed his last.” — 


LIFE OF LAURENCE STERNE. iii 

At that time Laurence Sterne was still at school, 
and, on being soundly flogged for perpetrating the 
favourite boy’s prank, of writing his name on the 
ceiling, was comforted by his master with the pro- 
phecy that he was a lad of genius who would come 
to preferment. No doubt, he was a clever, eccentric 
boy ; and Colonel Ord, of Longridge, near Berwick- 
on-Tweed, who came to the school shortly after Sterne 
left, saw the name still upon the ceiling, and found the 
tradition of his humour still preserved, and instances 
of his wit quoted. When he grew famous, a morning 
paper recorded, that it was his way to learn when he 
pleased, and not oftener than once a fortnight. 

After leaving school, his cousin, of Elvington, who 
treated him like a son, sent him to Jesus College, 
Cambridge, where, in July, 1733 , he obtained a sizar- 
ship. There he read a good deal, and established an 
unfortunate friendship with the loose and witty John 
Hall Stevenson, author of “ Crazy Tales,” whose com- 
panionship must be accountable for much of Sterne’s 
outrages against decency. Mr. Cole, the antiquary, re- 
membered Hall as “an ingenious young gentleman, 
and very handsome.” In March, 1735 , Laurence ma- 
triculated, and, in January, 1736 , took his Bachelor 
degree. In the March of the same year, he was 
ordained deacon, and in August, 1738 , priest. No 
man was ever more unsuited to wearing the gown. 

He now came to York, where his uncle, Dr. Jaques 
Sterne, precentor of the cathedral, a noisy _ ecclesias- 
tical politician, had obtained for him the vicarage of 
Sutton ; and in the meanwhile courted his first love, 
Miss Lumley, of Staffordshire. This was to be the 
weak part in Mr. Sterne’s life— an unrestrained and 
incurable tendre for the fair sex. This he excused 
by the indulgent names of flirtation, innocent passion, 
and the like. But such fickleness is evidence of a 
certain untrueness of heart— a want of manliness 
and honour. The whole course of his life was to be 


iv LIFE OF LAURENCE STERNE. 

dotted with these “ affairs of the heart,” which at last 
grew indispensable to his spirits and comfort ; as he 
rather absurdly proclaimed that, in one of these fits, 
he never could be guilty of a dirty action, and that 
it kept his moral sense healthy. It might be objected 
that the desertion of one of the objects of his evanes- 
cent passions, was something like a dirty action ; but it 
must be allowed that the Rev. Mr. Sterne was as it were 
privileged, and “wrote so beautifully” on love, and 
was so devoted to the sex, that his ways and manners 
were well known. His courting of Miss Lumley was- 
romantic enough. He wrote her passionate die-away 
letters ; but some fantastic misconception as to money 
matters prevented them coming to an understanding. 
At last, she fell into a consumption, and then showed 
her lover her will, in which he had been left every- 
thing. “ This generosity overpowered me,” says Mr. 
Sterne ; and on the 30th March, 1741, they were 
married at the cathedral. 

They were quite un suited to each other, though few 
ladies would have suited the agreeable and mercurial 
clergyman ; but she had a homely, matter-of-fact mind. 
There can be no question but that she sat for Mrs. 
Shandy, and there are various traits of her in her hus- 
band’s letters, which almost prove this likeness. She 
must have been plain also, if we can trust a curious pen- 
and-ink etching of her, which M. Stapfer has published 
in his monograph. The late Mr. Hawthorne saw a pair of 
crayon portraits of both husband and wife, and was struck 
by her unpleasant expression. With books, painting, 
fiddling, and shooting, Sterne spent his time at Sutton — 
so he tells his daughter — leaving out some love-making, 
which he pursued at York, and much merry-making, 
at Skelton Castle with Hall Stevenson, where lie paid 
frequent visits, met some of the abandoned “ Monks 
of Medmenham,” and pored over the curious old books 
in the library. Here it was that he was captivated by 
the piquant oddities of such writers as Bishop Hall, 


LIFE OF LAURENCE STERNE. 


Sir Thomas Browne, Brascambille, and the author of 
the “ Moyen de Parvenir,” who helped him so much 
in his Tristram. “ Crazy Castle,” (Skelton) was a most 
congenial, quaint old place, and its old halls and towers 
saw many a wild prank. In the meantime his first 
child Lydia was born, in the year 1745, who only lived 
one day. The following year he obtained a prebend 
in the Cathedral, worth about £50 a-year, through the 
interest of his wife’s family. He now figured as a 
“ wit ” in the cathedral society, and preached a series 
of strangely dramatic sermons, wholly unsuited to 
a country congregation, but which were modelled 
on the fantastic efforts of some eccentric mediaeval 
preachers. Under his uncle’s patronage, he plunged 
into the virulent politics of the day, but soon quar- 
relled with him, because he could not bring himself to 
write party paragraphs in the newspapers, though 
it was suspected he did so a good deal on his own 
account. In 1747, his second daughter was born, and 
christened Lydia. In the same year he preached a 
charity sermon in York, and in 1752, another, before 
the Judges of Assize, in the cathedral. This was an 
honour. But he was to have other, more congenial, 
matters on his hands, and in 1759 was to fall in love 
with a Miss Catherine de Fourmantelle, a young 
Huguenot girl, who had come to York from France. 
This lady he pursued after his favourite fashion, half- 
paternal, half -pious, or wholly sentimental, and it 
must be said that his letters are very charming love- 
letters. After some cathedral wranglings, in which he 
took part with his pen, and wrote a strange squib, 
called “The History of a Warm Watch Coat,” he 
began to set to work on his great book, “ Tristram 
Shandy.” This was originally quite a local satire, but 
owing to the publisher’s advice, he struck out many of 
the allusions and made it more general. It was offered 
to the London publishers for £50, which was thought 
too great a risk, so he resolved to print it at his own 
expense. 


vi LIFE OF LAURENCE STERNE. 

There was great excitement in York attendant on its 
comingout, for it was known to contain muchpersonality. 
It was published in December, 1759, and in two days, 
Hinxham, the York bookseller, had sold more than 200 
copies at five shillings each. It contained many local 
portraits and sketches,— among others, that of Dr. 
Burton, an accoucheur of repute, as Dr. Slop, Dr. 
Mead as Dr. Kunastrokius, himself as Yorick, his father 
as Uncle Toby, Mrs. Sterne, and Miss Fourmantelle, 
with all sorts of stray allusions. 

The shire was in a storm. He was abused, remon- 
strated with, and exhorted to excise largely for his 
second edition. Prudent friends warned him that he 
was sacrificing his chances of preferment. He was 
told from London that his book could not be put into 
the hands of any woman of character. He replied 
that he only wrote to be famous, and that he scorned 
to kneel in the dust to any patron. In this independ- 
ence he certainly was genuine. The following year 
he went up to London for the season, where, as Mr. 
Forster says, no one was so talked of and admired as 
“the tall, thin, hectic-looking Yorkshire parson.” 

He put up in Pall Mall, and his rooms were besieged 
with fine company. Within twenty-four hours he was 
engaged to ten noblemen and men of fashion. Lord 
Chesterfield, Lord Kockingham, Fox, Garrick, Lords 
Lyttleton, Spencer, and Edgcumbe were all eager for 
his company. But what was strange, all the 
bishops came to call on him. Warburton, the Bishop 
of Gloucester, was enchanted with him, and gave him 
a purse of gold. Such episcopal patronage to the 
author of a clever but indecent book was surely encour- 
agement to go on. Lord Falconberg gave him the 
perpetual curacy of Stillington, worth about £70 
a-year. Then he was taken to Court, supped with 
Prince Edward, and, in short, received attention 
enough to overset the head and sense of any poor 
country parson. He had quite forgotten the Huguenot 


LIFE OF LAURENCE STERNE. vi 

lady, wlio wished him to advance her interest among 
his great friends, and who at last followed him to town. 
He could not spare her a day, or even an hour, though 
he had solemnly assured her she was to succeed his 
wife, and that he would cling to her in death. A 
strange finale to the adventure is endorsed on the 
packet which contains her letters, by a Mrs. Weston. 
That lady states that Sterne courted the girl five 
years, had then deserted her, and married Mrs. Sterne : 
that the young lady in consequence had lost her wits, 
and that she was the original of Maria of Moulins. 
Dates dispose of Mrs. Sterne’s part in the matter ; but 
there is no doubt of his promise to marry the young 
Frenchwoman, as well as of his desertion, and the rest 
is not unlikely. Flattery and self-indulgence, and 
above all, the indulgence in false sentiment, in which 
the world encouraged him, blinded him to the suffer- 
ings of others. 

Warburton’s odd present had now got noised abroad, 
and Dr. Hill put a very natural construction on it. 
Tristram, when he grew up, was to have a travelling 
tutor, and Warburton, he insinuated, was to have been 
pitched on as a model. 

It seems probable that the proud and unscrupulous 
man would try to buy off so dangerous a satirist. When 
we think how he denounced Wilkes’s indecency, it was 
not likely that he would favour one who followed at 
a humble distance, so he tried to make the object of 
liis episcopal patronage more decent and respectable, 
by friendly warnings. When these were not attended 
to he complacently began to fear that “ the man was an 
irrevocable scoundrel.” 

Meanwhile Sterne was pelted from “ cellar to garret,” 
in the newspapers and reviews, pursued with rhymes and 
squibs of the most ribald kind. I have seen a unique 
little caricature, representing him as standing in his 
robes in front of the Venus de Medici, with this inscrip- 
tion— 


viii LIFE OF LAURENCE STERNE. 

“ Behold the learned prebend, wise and grave, 

To tawdry wit become a selfish slave.” 

But these attacks only added to his popularity. He 
dressed up his old Sutton sermons— from the specimen 
in Tristram the public were eager to have more— and 
for them, and a second edition of Tristram (exhausted 
in three weeks), he received <£480. 

At last he returned to Yorkshire, after a three 
months’ brilliant campaign in Town, where he had 
made his name both in letters and socially. He moved 
to Coxwould, his new living, leaving his curate to 
look after Sutton and Stillington, and established 
himself at a quaint old house still standing, and which 
he christened “ Shandy Hall.” It is known by that 
name to this day. But he could not rest long there. 
Before the winter he had his two fresh Shandys ready, 
and by Christmas was in town again. This time he 
was more than six months away, “ cantering it along 
on his haunches,” and enjoying himself. By Christ- 
mas he had again two of his little volumes ready, and, 
as usual, came up with them himself. But this winter 
he had a second chest attack— he had broken a vessel 
in his lungs at Cambridge — and was disordered. 
Tristram was beginning to flag ; an account of his tra- 
vels, done in a Shandean fashion, would stimulate a 
languid public, and in 1762 he started for Paris. — 
There he made nearly as great “ a success ” as in Lon- 
don. D’Holbach’s and other noted salons were thrown 
open to him. Choiseul was curious as to this odd 
“ Chevalier Shandy,” about whose eccentricity he heard 
so much, and the Duke of Orleans paid him the ques- 
tionable compliment of adding his portrait to a gallery 
of eccentric men that he had formed. Two of his Sham 
dyisms were retailed about Paris ; one his compact with 
the licentious Crebilon, that they should write books 
against each other’s proceedings, and divide the profits ; 
the other, his pretending to know and taking off a 
certain diplomatist, at a dinner party, without being 


LIFE OF LAURENCE STERNE. 


IX 


aware that the diplomatist was sitting next to him. 
He now sent for his wife and daughter, with whom 
he set off for Toulouse, where they were to pass the 
winter. A number of English families were settled 
there, the Hodges’, He wefts’, and others ; and Mr. 
Sterne set on foot theatricals and all kinds of amuse- 
ment. 

After the winter was over, the family migrated to 
Bagnieres, and thence to Montpellier, where the 
French were vastly amused with Mrs. Sterne’s per- 
tinacious pursuit of her lord, who bore it “with the 
patience of an angel,” until he caught a fever, and 
was almost at the point of death, under the barba- 
rous treatment of the Montpellier doctors, who gave 
him “cocks flayed alive,” and other strange nos- 
trums. He fled from them to Paris, where he got well 
at once, and preached in the Ambassador’s chapel, be- 
fore a strange collection of individuals — libertines and 
beaux esprits of all kinds. There is something very 
profane and disagreeable in this notion; but the 
scene would make a dramatic subject for a painter. 
He was then smitten with the tenderest pains that 
human wight ever underwent. “ I wish thou couldst 
conceive how deliciously I cantered away with it the 
first month — two up, two down — always upon my 
haunches along the street, from my hotel to here ; at 
first once, then twice, then three times a day ; until 
I was within an ace of setting up my hobby-horse 
within her stable for good and all ; I might as well, 
considering how the enemies of the Lord have blas- 
phemed thereon.” In this light and profane fashion 
did the Rev. Laurence regard his attachments. 

In August, 1764, he was back again at York, on the 
whole, scarcely improved by his travels. His wife, 
tired of his vagaries, had determined to stay* in 
France, and fixed herself at Montauban with her 
daughter, where, as far as money went, they could not 
complain of his neglecting them. The gay Laurence 


LIFE OF LAURENCE STERNE. 


was utterly unfitted for the hum-drum duties of hus- 
band or father ; society was grown to be indispensable. 
He found time to “ knock off” a couple of very lean 
Shandys, which appeared in January, 1765. But he 
was now merely trying to fill out his yearly contribu- 
tion, and swelled his chapters with bits of fooling 
that seemed almost an affront to his readers. He 
proposed taxing the public regularly for many years 
to come, and making his Tristram a sort of annual. 
He spent some time in London ; — went to Bath,— - 
fell in love with Lady Percy, and then, finding his 
health growing worse, and his “plaguy cough” fasten- 
ing on him, determined to fly to the continent. About 
the middle of October he set off on his famous Senti- 
mental Journey, — met those adventures at Calais 
which have made Dessein’s Hotel famous, — had a 
fresh success at Paris, and set off for Italy. He passed 
by Home, Milan, Turin ; was everywhere received into 
the best society, and lived a dissipated rackety life. * 
Coming home, he went out of his way to hunt up his 
wife and daughter, and then returned home, prophesy- 
ing that he should live these ten years. With the 
Christmas .of 1766, he had flown to town with his 
wares, a single volume of Tristram — the last, as it 
proved to be, — two new volumes of Sermons, and his 
“Sentimental Journey,” nearly complete, which he 
intended should run to four volumes. 

His lodgings were at 41, Old Bond Street, at a bag- 
wig maker’s, and the house is still to be seen. The 
subscription list for his Sermons sparkled with 
famous names, English and foreign ; but, by this time 
he had grown so infatuated with the pleasures of town- 
life, and so reckless as to appearance, that the public 
were every day growing more and more scandalized. 
A memorial was sent in to his Archbishop, calling 
attention to the discredit brought on the Church by 
such a minister going uncensured, and, it might be 
fairly added, to his long desertion of his cure. But 


LIFE OF LAURENCE STERNE. 


xi 


there were only too many of his cloth to keep him in 
countenance, and the excuse of his miserable health 
was a genuine one. His Archbishop, too, was easy. 
The worst feature was his “Tristram , 57 which was grow- 
ing less witty only to become more indecent. And 
soon he was to raise fresh scandal among his friends 
by the notorious “ Draper 57 episode. This was with an 
Indian lady who had come over an invalid, leaving 
her husband and family at Bombay. He met her at 
his friends the J ames 7 — people whose affectionate sym- 
pathy and interest ought to disprove much that has 
been said about Sterne’s falsity of heart and sham 
sentiment. They were kind sensible friends, who 
knew his faults and warned him about his follies. 
Mrs.’Draper was more interesting than handsome, and 
was quite flattered by the extravagant admiration of 
so fashionable and celebrated a professor of the Ars 
Ainoris. But this adoration began to be talked of, and 
was only interrupted by the recall of the lady to 
India ; not, however, before some oflicious friend had 
reported it to his wife and daughter in France. 

The father had to defend himself, after a lame 
fashion, to his child Lydia ; and must have at that 
moment felt how degrading and childish, even in one 
of his age, were such passions — for he was now not 
very far from sixty. When Eliza had gone down to 
Deal, where the Indiaman was lying, he began to write 
her those celebrated letters, “ Yorick to Eliza , 75 which 
must be placed on the shelf with the Sorrows of 
Werther, and other records of blighted love. He 
also sent her portions of a most curious journal of his 
daily life, which he kept for her benefit. Half of this 
history is now in possession of Mr. Gibbs, of Bath, the 
rest has been lost. A very minute and curious narrative, 
and which seemed to me, from the glimpses and 
extracts with which I have been favoured, to be of 
singular value, as a picture of town life and manner 
a century ago, and certainly a most genuine and un- 


LIFE OF LAURENCE STERNE. 


xii 

affected specimen of Sterne’s writing. Tliis journal 
was submitted to the late Mr. Thackeray, when he 
was preparing his well known Lecture on Sterne, but 
was returned as being of no assistance. This seems 
incomprehensible, unless it be explained by the well 
known story of theAbb6Vertot, who, when offered some 
valuable documents for his History of the Knights of 
Malta, declined them, on the plea that “ his siege was 
over ” and he could not alter it. Scattered through it 
are many good stories, accounts of dinners and suppers 
with men of fashion, and some rather coarse anecdotes. 
The letters of Yorick to Eliza are a strange jumble of 
love, piety, and artful argument, and full of vehement 
protestations of eternal fidelity. As it was through 
the vanity of the lady they came to be published, it 
seems highly probable that there were interpolations 
as well as omissions, and there are several passages 
which support such a view. 

On the 3rd of April, the East Indiaman, Earl of Chat- 
ham, sailed away. “ Eliza ” must have been a woman 
of extraordinary powers of fascination ; and Baynal 
has left in his History of the Indies, an almost frantic 
panegyric on her charms. — She came back to England 
about four years after Sterne’s death. But in one of these 
prodigious “ ship letters,” — which are indeed treatises, 
and which she sent from India — she gives us a real 
prosaic conclusion to the Yorick and Eliza romance. 
She there says that Mr. Sterne had treated her badly, 
that she had discovered him to be heartless and selfish. 
She herself died, in 1778, was buried at Bombay, but 
has a monument in Bristol Cathedral, which proclaims 
that— “ in her genius and benevolence were united.” 
She adds another to the list of ordinary women, like 
Burns’ Clarinda, whom the admiration of men of 
genius has made immortal. 

After her departure, a sort of depression seemed to 
come over the lover— a kind of rueful dissatisfaction 
with himself, and hate of the life he was leading, which 


LIFE OF LAURENCE STERNE. 


xm 


might be set down to the kindly admonitions of Mrs. 
J ames. His health was growing worse every hour, and 
he had to change the air and get to the country. This 
restored him; but he wrote to his old friend, Stevenson, 
“that his heart ought to be merry, as he never felt so 
well since he left college, and should be a marvellous 
happy man, but for some reflections which bow down 
my spirits. But if I live but even three or four years, 
I will acquit myself with honour and — no matter . . .” 
These are remarkable words, considering the man to 
whom they are addressed. His wife and daughter at 
last returned to him, in obedience to his pressing 
entreaties. At this time there may be noticed a more 
subdued and gentle tone in him ; he was having 
compunction and forebodings — and perhaps, with a 
more judicious partner than Mrs. Sterne was, helping 
a daughter whom he lo ved extravagantly, some radical 
change might have been effected. Here was the re- 
deeming point : — on this daughter he doted ; and for her 
sake, with all his extravagance and pleasures, he kept 
his Lydia and her mother well supplied with means. 

He now left them in York in the season, and a few 
days after Christmas in 1767, started on his last ex- 
pedition to town. — “Now, I take Heaven,” he wrote 
solemnly to a friend, “ my heart is innocent, and the 
sport of my pen is just equal to what I did in my 
boyish days wnen I sat astride of a stick and galloped 
away.” This may be the apology for his speech and 
manners : not for his Sentimental Journey, which was 
now ready to be published ; his only excuse for which 
deliberate defiance to decency, is the encouragement 
of friends and the tacit approval of really good 
people, like the James’. Double entendre , if it was 
but ingenious and elegant, became a polite accomplish- 
ment. It did seem strange that just about the week 
in which came out this book, from which so much was 
expected, he himself should be seized with the short 
last illness which swept him from the world. That 


xiv 


LIFE OF LAURENCE STERNE. 


extraordinary book, so picturesque, so full of colour — 
but so corrupt in its tone, was actually to begin to 
make a new reputation for him, and make him a classic 
in France. But he was not to know of this success. 

At the beginning of March his old enemy came to 
attack him again ; though it was nightly balls and his 
rackety life that invited 'the attack. He was worn 
out by the illness, and his treatment wasted him yet 
more. There was no one but his friend Mr. J ames 
to look after him. “ I wish I had thee to nurse me,” 
he piteously wrote to his daughter, “ but I am denied 
that.” This denial may have been occasioned by his 
own faults, or by his wife’s peculiar temper ; in either 
case it is hard not to pity the dying humourist, for 
such he was. He was little more than a week ill. 
His last letters from his deathbed show a warmth 
and tenderness that went deeper than that sham 
sentiment with which he was charged. To Mrs. 
James, when he was first seized, he wrote a little 
note, which, as it has never been published, may be 
given here — 

“Mr. Sterne’s kindest and most friendly compli- 
ments to Mrs. Janies, with his most sentimental thanks 
for her obliging enquiry after his health. He fell ill 
the moment he got to his lodgings, and has been 
attended by a physician ever since— die says ’tis owing 
to Mr. Sterne’s taking James’s powder, and venturing 
out on so cold a day ; but Mr. Sterne could give a 
truer account. He is almost dead, yet still hopes to 
glide like a shadow to Gerard Street in a few days, to 
thank his good friend for her good will. All compli- 
ments to Mr. James — and all comfort to his good 
lady.” 

One later from his death-bed, commending his 
daughter to that lady’s charge, is piteous and almost 
despairing beyond description. He seems to have 
been completely deserted, and it stands to the dis- 
credit of Mrs. Sterne, whatever her causes of com- 


LIFE OF LAURENCE STERNE. 


xv 


plaint, that neither she nor his. daughter were by his 
bedside. On the Friday following, which was March 
13th, 1768, towards four o’clock in the afternoon, the 
end came on. He complained of cold in his feet and 
limbs, and the woman who attended him, began 
to rub. But he felt the cold mounting higher. A 
footman sent to enquire after him from a merry 
party, where Garrick, Hume, and Lord March were 
dining, came up stairs just as he was expiring, saw 
the wasted arm lifted suddenly, as if to ward off a 
blow, caught the words, “now it is come !” and saw 
him then fall back in death. This was the report he 
brought to the gentlemen who were dining, and who 
“ were very sorry.” In a burst of affectation in his 
Tristram, he wished to die thus deserted : and must 
have felt how cruelly his wish had been gratified. 
We may wonder too, did the thought of the legacy of 
mischief he had bequeathed to the world in the shape 
of licentious writing further distract his last moments ; 
or when the woman was rubbing his knee, did he 
think of Trim’s story of the Beguine, and of the coarse 
satyr-like colour he there imparted to such an office 
of charity. There were ghastly circumstances following 
his death. He was buried in the new burying-ground 
at Bayswater. His publisher, Becket, and Mr. Salt, 
of the India House — Elia’s Sam Salt — being his only 
mourners. Only two nights after, the resurrection- 
men took his body, sent it down to Cambridge, where, 
as a Mr. Collignon, the Professor, was anatomizing it, 
it was recognized by a friend. This was all on the 
grim side of Shandeism, as he would have called it, 
and certainly from the beginning to the end, his life 
is evidence of the genuine character of his work. 

The design of Tristram Shandy, Sterne’s great 
work, is not original, and is founded, in the main, on 
Rabelais, and Martinus Scriberus, and in its details 
is an imitation of the old humour of some two 
or three centuries before. The inditing a sort of 


xvi LIFE OF LAURENCE STERNE. 

grotesque biography : — a grave, solemn account of 
the birth, education, and bringing tip of a child, was 
a favourite way of laughing at the follies and hobbies 
of the times. The library of his friend. Hall Steven- 
son, overflowed with strange books of this descrip- 
tion, written with a serious earnestness and gravity, 
on trifling and odd subjects, and which, indeed, is 
the secret of the Shandean humour. This solemnity 
is found in the works of Bruscambille, Montaigne, 
Bishop Hall, Kabelais, and many more ; in the curious 
Latin squibs in which men of letters of the sixteenth 
century delighted — in Erasmus’ dialogues — in pas- 
sages of Swift and Fielding. “Jonathan Wild,” 
“ Gulliver,” and Essays like the “ Modest Proposal,” 
are all in this key. This gravity is utterly absent in 
modern attempts at humour, and is perhaps the cause 
of the general decay of wit. Sterne has been detected 
in abundant instances of plagiarism in this direction, 
but the charge has been made too much of. The 
truth is, these are the weakest portions of Tristram. 
They are affectations and excrescences, drawn in as 
it were by head and shoulders to fill up the measure. 
For he reckoned on his work as a steady income, 
and proposed to tax the public every year. Gradu- 
ally he found his resources failing him, and the un- 
dertaking a drudgery : and to stimulate public inte- 
rest, had recourse to these borrowings, which soon 
took the shape of familiarities and freedoms that 
amounted almost to effrontery. Such were the blank 
and marbled pages, wrong headings of chapters, “ the 
careless squirtings” of his ink, resources to fill up 
his stipulated two volumes. Further proof of this 
is found in his inartistic and abrupt dragging of his 
Uncle Toby and Mr. Shandy abroad, which was no 
more than the insertion of his own travelling diary, 
merely to fill in a volume. But his real strength 
was in character — the admirable touchings — the 
knowledge of human springs of action. Where he was 


LIFE, OF LAURENCE STERNE. 


xvii 


dealing with my uncle Toby or Yorick or Mr. and Mrs. 
Shandy, he was on firm ground. As may, perhaps, 
be found in reading the present little volume, his bits 
of grotesque, his freedoms and familiarities, may be 
dispensed with, and with little loss of effect. For the 
first time, these characters of the very first rank, with 
all the domestic scenes, in which they figure, may 
be now laid on the drawing-room table and read with 
delight. 

To the French nation at large, Tristram has always 
been unintelligible, although it has been translated 
several times. But the Sentimental Journey enjoys a 
high popularity. It is a unique book, amazing for its 
perfect flavour, and picturesque tone — but it is dis- 
figured by meaningless “ grossieret&s,” indelicacies 
that are as inartistic as they are scandalous. The 
merited retribution has been an abridgment of at 
least one half its popularity. Sterne’s sermons are 
strangely theatrical, and utterly inappropriate in a 
church. And though they have obtained the imma- 
ture approbation of Mr. Gladstone, in his “ Essay on 
Church and State,” they have nothing genuine about 
them. They are full, too, of indecorous Shandeisms, 
modelled on stock jests and stories relating to mediaeval 
preachers. His letters are admirable, genuine, free, 
graphic, and entertaining in the highest degree. A 
new essay of his was lately published by M. Stapfer, 
an acute French writer, which is admittedly his writing, 
and which I have no hesitation in pronouncing 
genuine, from internal evidence which seems to have 
escaped M. Stapfer, viz., that the description of the 
garden and orchard corresponds to Sterne’s own. 

It might have been expected that a Life of Sterne, 
published a few years ago, would have brought out 
some worthy English criticism on the works of 
such a writer. But it was reserved for the 
French to contribute to literature a true appre- 
ciation of so great a writer. M. de Mont6gut, in 


xviii LIFE OF LAURENCE STERNE. 

one of those admirable and exhaustive articles in 
the Revue des deux Mondes, furnished a speci- 
men of fine yet deep French criticism, which will 
hold a permanent place ; while M. Stapfer, in his 
“ Monograph,” founded on _ “ The Life,” has ex- 
hibited a finesse and delicacy in the appreciation of 
an English writer, marvellous in a foreigner. Mr. 
Elwin, in the “ Quarterly” had, many years before, 
given a discriminating view of Sterne’s life and 
writings, while the late Mr. Thackeray’s shallow esti- 
mate of Sterne’s character was merely the sensation 
of the hour. There was something almost ludicrous 
in the venomous way in which he assailed the great 
writer, fastening especially on what he thought the 
hypocritical side of his character : the sham sentiment, 
the “leering” Tartuffeism, and mock humanity. It 
has always seemed that there could be but one solu- 
tion : a consciousness of the same unreality in the 
modern writer’s own satire against social vices. 

Without pursuing this comparison further, it may 
be pointed out into what gross blunders his rage 
against Sterne betrayed him. The whole tone of 
the lecture in which he criticised Sterne is unbe- 
coming ; as where he calls him “ a mountebank,” and 
jeers at some of his most famous passages, on the 
ground of their insincerity. This tone seems to 
amount to an utter insensibility to fine poetic colour; 
as, for instance, in those charming little series of 
sketches which have made Dessein’s Court-yard at 
Calais famous — like the desobligeant, which has been 
painted again and again. He could cavil at this pretty 
etching — “Four months had elapsed since it had 
finished its career of Europe in the corner of Monsieur 
Dessein’s court-yard, and having sallied out thence 
but a vamped-up business at first, though it had been 

twice taken to pieces on Mount Sennis 

Much, indeed, was not to be said for it, but some- 
thing might, and when a few words will rescue 


Life of Laurence stfrnf. xix 

misery out of her distress, I liate the man who can 
be a churl of them.” This, said Mr. Thackeray, was 
only more of the mountebank — “ Does anyone believe 
that this is a real sentiment — that this luxury of 
generosity — this gallant rescue out of misery of an 
old cab is genuine feeling 1 ” Such lack of fine sense 
is inconceivable. Sterne, as anyone can see, never 
dreamed of such a view; it is a pleasant bit of 
trifling — persiflage almost : just as one would say — 
“ I took pity on the thing.” But it is impossible to 
argue on such nuances — they make their own appeal. 
In worse taste was his sneer at the description of the 
dead ass — famous all the world over — “ Tears and 
fine feelings, and a white pocket-handkerchief, and a 
funeral sermon, horses and feathers, and a procession 
of mutes, and a hearse, with a dead donkey inside. 
Pshaw, mountebank !” Here, again, is an utter mis- 
conception, as the whole pathos centres in the 
mourner for the dead ass. 

But his mistakes as to facts are more serious : such 
a collection of blunders was rarely collected into a 
few pages. He says that Richard Sterne was Arch- 
bishop of York in the time of James II. ; but that 
prelate died in the reign of Charles II. “Roger 
Sterne was a lieutenant in Handiside’s regiments,” 
but Roger never served in that corps. “ He married 
the daughter of a noted sutler ” — she was the sutler’s 
daughter-in-law. “ One relative of his mother’s 
took her and her family under shelter for ten 
months at Mullingar ; another descendant of the 
Archbishop’s housed them for a year at his castle near 
Carrickfergus.” This is all confused. The ten months 
were spent at Elvington, not at Mullingar ; and it was 
a relative of his father, not of his mother, that so 
entetrained them. The mother’s relative, too, lived 
in Wicklow, not in Mullingar, and kept them six 
months. Finally, to make the shuffle complete, the 
collateral descendant of the Archbishop’s had no 


XX 


LIFE OF LAURENCE STERNE. 


castle at Carrickfergus, though the regiment had been 
recently quartered there. Laurence remained at 
Halifax School, not “ till he was eighteen years old/’ 
but till he was twenty ; and he remained at Cam- 
bridge not five years, but four. Some of the English, 
too, is very curious : it is strange to hear a man like 
Mr. Thackeray talking of anyone getting “a preben- 
dary of York,” meaning a prebend. This, too, is 
odd : “ He married the daughter of a noted sutler, 
and marched through the world with this companion, 
following the regiment , and bringing many children to 
poor Roger Sterne.” (!) This is converting the father 
into the mother. Again, when he says : “ The cap- 
tain was an irascible, but kind and simple little man, 
Sterne says, and informs us that his sire was run 
through the body at Gibraltar,” it is made to appear 
that it was the sire who informs us. But there are 
more serious perversions still. There is a free and 
easy letter in Latin, in which Sterne says he was 
“ sick of his wife,” and which Mr. Thackeray, to make 
Sterne’s conduct more questionable, says was written 
in the year 1767, at the same time that he was so de- 
voted to Mrs. Draper. The letter is actually undated ; 
but the context, where Sterne mentions his own age 
fixes the date at about 1753 or 1754, near thirteen 
years earlier. Again, he says that this Mrs. Draper 
had hardly sailed when “the coward” was at a 
coffee-house writing to another lady, Lady Percy, and 
offering his affections to her. This is a precise charge 
of duplicity and disloyalty ; but there is no date to 
the letter. Again Sterne was warning Airs. Draper 
against some people he disliked ; but Mr. Thackeray, 
who had not read the letters carefully, jumped at the 
conclusion that this was a sneer at the lady’s husband. 
The context proves conclusively that “ the gentility ” 
Sterne was warning her against was that of some 
people who were odious to him, and whose influence 
with her he had tried to undetermine even by a false- 


LIFE OF LAURENCE STERNE. 


xxi 


hood. The class of English writers to which Sterne 
belongs is small— the species is almost the genus — and 
it is unfortunate that s^ch an attack should have come 
from a writer of kindred genius. 

No memorial of any kind exists to his memory. 
There remains indeed the marvellous portrait by Sir 
Joshua, of which the well known engraving gives a 
very imperfect idea, the eyes in the picture being 
lighter and a little cruel, and the mouth more good- 
humoured. But it is hoped that this neglect of the 
memory of so remarkable a writer will soon be repaired. 
The Dean of York has given permission for a memo- 
rial to be placed in the cathedral, and the Archbishop 
of York has promised a contribution. Whatever have 
been the failings of Bishop Warburton’s “ irrevocable 
scoundrel,” the creator of my uncle Toby, the author 
of the pathetic story of Le Fever, deserves at least a 
tablet and inscription. 

I am aware that there are great objections to what 
has been called a “ Bowlerized edition but I think 
it will be found that Sterne suffers less from this pro- 
cess than would be supposed. All the passages by 
which his reputation has been made may be read by 
“ boys and virgins the coarse portions are for the 
most part digressions ; the author goes out of his way 
to seek those nasty piquancies. But all the while 
there remains the interest in Mr. Shandy’s household, 
and his visitors, the arguments of Yorick and uncle 
Toby with their host, the latter’s campaigns and court- 
ship— in short, a little story. I may lay claim to some 
little ingenuity in the arrangement of these scenes, 
especially in finding a conclusion for Sterne’s incom- 
plete work, by shifting some passages from the middle 
of the book. I have also made some other transposi- 
tions, which become almost legitimate when it is con- 
sidered that Sterne himself was respectively antici- 
pating or shifting the events of his little narrative. 


xxii LIFE OF LAURENCE STERNE. 

I have also carefully collated the text with the original 
editions, published in Sterne’s life-time, and restored 
much of the effective though irregulative punctuation 
which later printers have removed. 

Percy FitzGerald. 



CONTENTS. 




PAGE 

LIFE OF LAURENCE STERNE i 

CHAPTER I. 

PERSON YORICK I 

CHAPTER II. 

MY FATHER AND MOTHER 1 4 

CHAPTER III. 

CAPTAIN SHANDY AND HIS HOBBY-HORSE ... 26 

CHAPTER IV. 

DOCTOR SLOP 43 

CHAPTER V. 

trim’s sermon 57 

CHAPTER VI. 

I COME INTO THE WORLD 67 

CPIAPTER VII. 

THE CHRISTENING 79 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

my father’s GRAND TRISTRA-P^EDIA . 

CHAPTER IX. 

THE STORY OF LE FEVER . 

CHAPTER X. 

MY UNCLE TOBY’S FORTIFICATIONS . 

CHAPTER XI. 

THE WIDOW WADMAN 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE SENTRY-BOX .... 


PAGE 

105 

122 

*34 

*50 

184 




THE STORY OF MY UNCLE TOBY. 


CHAPTER I. 


PARSON YORICK. 



N the fifth day of November, 1718, was 1, 
Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, brought fortli 
into this scurvy and disastrous world of 
ours. — I wish I had been born in the moon, 
or in any of the planets (except Jupiter or Saturn, 
because I never could bear cold weather,) for it 
could not well have fared worse with me in any 
of them (though I will not answer for Venus) than 
it has in this vile, dirty planet of ours, — which o’ 
my conscience, with reverence be it spoken, I take 
to be made up of the shreds and clippings of the 
rest ; — not but the planet is well enough, provided a 
man could be born in it to a great title or to a great 
estate ; or could anyhow contrive to be called up to 
public charges, and employments of dignity or power - 
but that is not my case ; — and therefore every man will 
speak of the fair as his own market has gone in it ; — 
for which cause I affirm it over again to be one of the 
vilest worlds that ever was made ; — for I can truly say, 
that from the first hour I drew my breath in it, to this, 
that I can now scarce draw it at all, for an asthma I 
got in skating against the wind in Flanders, — I have 
been the continual sport of what the world calls fortune ; 

1 


THE STOBY OF 


and though I will not wrong her by saying she has ever 
made me feel the weight of any great or signal evil 
yet with all the good temper in the world, I affirm it of 
her, that in every stage of my life, and at every turn and 
corner where she could get fairly at me, the ungracious 
duchess has pelted me with a set of as pitiful misadven- 
tures and cross accidents as ever small hero sustained. 

In the same village where my father and mother 
dwelt, dwelt also a thin, upright, motherly, notable, good 
old body of a midwife, who, with the help of a little 
plain good sense, and some years’ full employment in 
her business, in which she had all along trusted little 
to her own efforts, and a great deal to those of 
Dame Nature, — had acquired, in her way, no small 
degree of reputation in the world ; — by which word 
world, need I in this place inform your worship that 
I would be understood to mean no more of it than a 
small circle described upon the circle of the great 
world, of four English miles diameter, or thereabouts, 
of which the cottage where the good old woman lived 
is supposed to be the centre. — She had been left, it 
seems, a widow in great distress, with three or four 
small children, in her forty-seventh year ; and as she 
was at that time a person of decent carriage, — grave 
deportment,— a woman moreover of few words, and 
withal an object of compassion, whose distress and 
silence under it called out the louder for a friendly 
lift : the wife of the parson of the parish was touched 
with pity ; and having often lamented an incon- 
venience, to which her husband’s flock had for many 
years been exposed, inasmuch, as there was no such 
thing as a midwife, of any kind or degree, to be got 
at, let the case have been never so urgent, within less 
than six or seven long miles’ riding ; which said seven 
long miles in dark nights and dismal roads, the 
country thereabouts being nothing but a deep clay, 
was almost equal to fourteen : and that in effect was 
sometimes next to having no midwife at all ; it came 


3 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 

into her head, that it would be doing as seasonable a 
kindness to the whole parish, as to the poor creature 
herself, to get her a little instructed in some of the 
plain principles of the business, in order to set her up 
in it. As no woman thereabouts was better qualified 
to execute the plan she had formed than herself, the 
gentlewoman very charitably undertook it ; and having 
great influence over the female part of the parish, she 
found no difficulty in effecting it to the utmost of her 
wishes. In truth, the parson joined his interest with 
his wife’s in the whole affair ; and in order to do 
things as they should be, and give the poor soul as 
good a title by law to practise, as his wife had given 
by institution, — he cheerfully paid the fees for the 
ordinary’s license himself, amounting in the whole to 
the sum of eighteen shillings and fourpence ; so that 
betwixt them both the good woman was fully invested 
in the real and corporal possession of her office, toge- 
ther with all its rights and appurtenances whatsoever. 

Whatever degree of small merit the act of benignity in 
favour of the midwife might justly claim, — at first sight 
seems not very material to this history ; certain however 
it was, that the gentlewoman, the parson’s wife, did run 
away at that time with the whole of it ; and yet, for 
my life, I cannot help thinking but that the parson 
himself, though he had not the good fortune to hit 
upon the design first, — yet, as he heartily concurred 
in it the moment it was laid before him, and as heartily 
parted with his money to carry it into execution, had 
a claim to some share of it, if not to a full half of 
whatever honour was due to it. 

The world at that time was pleased to determine 
the matter otherwise. 

Be it known then, that for about five years before 
the date of the midwife’s license, the parson had made 
himself a country talk by a breach of all decorum ; — 
and that was in never appearing better, or otherwise 
mounted, than upon a lean sorry jackass of a horse, 

1—2 


4 


THE STORY OF 


value about one pound fifteen shillings ; who, to 
shorten the description of him, was full brother to 
Rosinante. 

In the several sallies about his parish, and in the 
neighbouring visits to the gentry who lived around 
him you will easily comprehend that the parson, so 
appointed, would both hear and see enough to keep 
his philosophy from rusting. To speak the truth, he 
never could enter a village, but he caught the attention 
of both old and young. — Labour stood still as he 
passed, — the bucket hung suspended in the middle 
of the well, — the spinning-wheel forgot its round, — 
even chuck-farthing and shuffle-cap themselves stood 
gaping till he had got out of sight ; and as his move- 
ment was not of the quickest, he had generally time 
enough upon his hands to make his observations, — to 
hear the groans of the serious, and the laughter of the 
light-hearted ; — all which he bore with excellent tran- 
quillity. — His character was, — he loved a jest in his 
heart — and as he saw himself in the true point of 
ridicule, he would say, he could not be angry with 
others for seeing him in a light in which he so strongly 
saw himself : So that to his friends, who knew his 
foible was not the love of money, and who therefore 
made the less scruple in bantering the extravagance 
of his humour,— instead of giving the true cause,— he 
chose rather to join in the laugh against himself ; and 
as he never carried one single ounce of flesh upon his 
own bones, being altogether as spare a figure as his 
beast,— he would sometimes insist upon it that the 
horse was as good as the rider deserved. 

At different times he would give fifty humorous and 
opposite reasons for riding a meek-spirited jade of a 
broken-winded horse, preferable to one of mettle ; — 
for on such a one he could sit mechanically, and 
meditate as delightfully de vanitate mundi et fugd 
sceculi , as with the advantage of a death’s-head before 
him that, in all other exercitations, he could spend 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


5 

his time, as he rode slowly along, — to as much account 
as in his study ; — that he could draw up an argument 
in his sermon, — or a hole in his breeches, as steadily 
on the one as in the other ; — that brisk trotting and 
slow argumentation, like wit and judgment, were two 
incompatible, movements. — But that upon his steed — 
he could unite and reconcile everything, — he could 
compose his sermon, — he could compose his cough, — 
and, in case nature gave a call that way, he could 
likewise compose himself to sleep. — In short, the 
parson upon such encounters would assign any cause 
but the true cause, — and he withheld the true one, 
only out of a nicety of temper, because he thought it 
did honour to him. 

But the truth of the story was as follows In the 
first years of this gentleman’s life, and about the time 
when a superb saddle and bridle were purchased by 
him, it ,had been his manner or vanity, or call it what 
you will, — to run into the opposite extreme. — In the 
language of the county where he dwelt, he was said 
to have loved a good horse, and generally had one of 
the best in the whole parish standing in his stable 
always ready for saddling ; and as the nearest mid- 
wife, as I told you, did not live nearer to the village 
than seven miles, and in a vile country, — it so fell out 
that the poor gentleman was scarce a whole week 
together without some piteous application for his 
beast ; and as he was not an unkind-hearted man, 
and every case was more pressing and more distressful 
than the last, — as much as he loved his beast, he had 
never a heart to refuse him ; the upshot of which was 
generally this, that his horse was either clapped, or 
spavined, or greased or he .was twitter-boned, or 
broken-winded, or something, in short, or other had 
befallen him, which would let him carry no flesh so 
that he had every nine or ten months a bad horse to 
get rid of,— and a good horse to purchase in his 
stead. 


6 


THE STOBY OF 


What the loss in such a balance might amount to, 
eommunibus annis , I would leave to a special jury of 
sufferers in the same traffic to determine ; — but let it 
be what it would, the honest gentleman bore it for 
many years without a murmur, till at length, by 
repeated ill accidents of the kind, he found it neces- 
sary to take the thing under consideration ; and upon 
weighing the whole, and summing it up in his mind, 
he found it not only disproportioned to his other 
expenses, but withal so heavy an article in itself, as 
to disable him from any other act of generosity in his 
parish. Besides this he considered, that with half the 
sum thus galloped away he could do ten times as 
much good ; and what still weighed more with him 
than all other considerations put together was this, 
that it confined all his charity into one particular 
channel, and where, as he fancied, it was the least 
wanted, namely, to the child-bearing part of his parish ; 
reserving nothing for the impotent,— nothing for the 
aged,— nothing for the many comfortless scenes he was 
hourly called forth to visit, where poverty, and sick- 
ness, and affliction dwelt together. 

For these reasons he resolved to discontinue the 
expense ; and there appeared but two possible ways 
to extricate him clearly out of it ; — and these were, 
either to make it an irrevocable law never more to 
lend his steed upon any application whatever,— or 
else be content to ride the last poor devil, such as they 
had made him. with all his aches and infirmities, to 
the very end of the chapter. 

As he dreaded his own constancy in the first, — he 
very cheerfully betook himself to the second ; and 
though he could very well have explained it, as I said, 
to his honour, — yet, for that very reason, he had a 
spirit above it ; choosing rather to bear the contempt 
of his enemies, and the laughter of his friends, than 
I undergo the pain of telling a story, which might seem 
1 a panegyric upon himself. 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


7 

I have the highest idea of the spiritual and refined 
sentiments of this reverend gentleman, from this 
single stroke in his character, which I think comes up 
to any of the honest refinements of the peerless knight 
of La Mancha , whom, by the bye, with all his follies, 

I love more, and would actually have gone further 
to have paid a visit to, than the greatest hero of 
antiquity. 

But this is not the moral of my story : The thing 
I had in view was to show the temper of the world in 
the whole of this affair. — For you must know, that so ^ 
i long as this explanation would have done the parson 
credit, — the devil a soul could find it out, — I suppose 
his enemies would not, and that his friends could not. ' 
— But no sooner did he bestir himself in behalf of the 
midwife, and pay the expenses of the ordinary’s licence 
to set her up, — but the whole secret came out ; every 
horse he had lost, and two horses more than ever he 
had lost, with all the circumstances of their destruc- 
tion, were known and distinctly remembered. — The 
story ran like wildfire — “ The parson had a returning 
“ fit of pride which had just seized him ; and he was 
“ going to be well mounted once again in his life ; 

“ and if it was so, ’twas plain as the sun at noon-day, 

“ he would pocket the expense of the licence, ten 
“ times told, the very first year So that everybody 
“ was left to judge what were his views in this act of 
“ charity.” 

What were his views in this, and in every other 
' action of his life, — or rather what were the opinions 
which floated in the brains of other people concerning 
it, was a thought which too much floated in his own, 
and too often broke in upon his rest, when he should 
have been found asleep. 

About ten years ago this gentleman had the good 
fortune to be made entirely easy upon that score, — it 
being just so -long since he left his parish,— and the 
whole world at the same time behind him, — and 


THE STOEY OF 


stands accountable to a Judge of whom lie will have 
no cause to complain. 

But there is a fatality attends the actions of some 
men : Order them as they will, they pass through a 
certain medium which so twists and refracts them 
from their true directions — that, with all the titles to 
praise which a rectitude of heart can give, the 
doers of them are nevertheless forced to live and 
die without it. 

Yorick was this parson’s name, who, by what I can 
remember of him, and by all the accounts I could ever 
get of him, seemed not to have had one single drop of 
Danish blood in his whole crasis ; in nine hundred 
years, it might possibly have all run out : — I will not 

E hilosophize one moment with you about it ; for, 
appen how it would, the fact was this : — that instead 
of that cold phlegm and exact regularity of sense and 
humours you would have looked for in one so extracted, 
— he was, on the contrary, as mercurial and sublimated 
a composition,— as heteroclite a creature in all his de- 
clensions ; — with as much life and whim, and gaiete de 
cceur about him, as the kindliest climate could have 
engendered and put together. With all this sail, poor 
Yorick carried not one ounce of ballast ; he was utterly 
unpractised in the world ; and, at the age of twenty- 
six, knew just about as well how to steer his course in 
it, as a romping, unsuspicious girl of thirteen : so 
that upon his first setting out, the brisk gale of his 
spirits, as you will imagine, ran him foul ten times in 
a day of somebody’s tackling ; and as the grave and 
more slow-paced were oftenest in his way, — you may 
likewise imagine, ’twas with such he had generally the 
ill luck to get the most intangled. For aught I know 
there might be some mixture of unlucky wit at the 
bottom oi such fracas : for, to speak the truth, Yorick 
had an invincible dislike and opposition in his nature 
to gravity ; — not to gravity as such ; — for where gravity 
was wanted, he would be the most grave or serious of 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 9 

mortal men for days and weeks together ; — but he was 
an enemy to the affectation of it, and declared open 
war against it, only as it appeared a cloak for igno- 
rance, or for folly ; and then, whenever it fell in his 
way, however skeltered and protected, he seldom gave 
it much quarter. 

But, in plain truth, he was a man unhackneyed and 
unpractised in the world, and was altogether as in- 
discreet and foolish on every other subject of discourse 
where policy is wont to impress restraint. Yorick had 
no impression but one, and that was what arose from 
the nature of the deed spoken of ; which impression 
he would usually translate into plain English without 
any periphrasis, — and too oft without much distinc- 
tion of either personage, time, or place; — so that 
when mention was made of a pitiful or an ungenerous 
proceeding, he never gave himself a moment’s time 
to reflect who was the hero of the piece, — what his 
station, — or how far he had power to hurt him here- 
after ; — but if it was a dirty action, — without more 
ado, — The man was a dirty fellow, — and so on : — and 
as his comments had usually the ill fate to be 
terminated either in a bon mot, or to be enlivened 
throughout with some drollery or humour of expres- 
sion, it gave wings to Yorick’s indiscretion. In a 
word, though he never sought, yet at the same time, 
as he seldom shunned occasions of saying what came 
uppermost, and without much ceremony ; he had but 
too many temptations in life, of scattering his wit and 
humour, — his gibes and jests about him. — They were 
not lost for want of gathering. To speak the truth, he 
had wantonly involved himself in a multitude of 
small book-debts of this stamp, which, notwith- 
standing Eugenius’s frequent advice, he too much 
disregarded ; thinking that as not one of them was 
contracted through any malignancy; — but, on the 
contrary, from an honesty of mind, and a mere 


IO 


THE STORY OF 


jocundity of humour, they would all of them be 
crossed out in course. 

Eugenius would never admit this ; and would often 
tell him, that one day or other he would certainly be 
reckoned with ; and he would often add, in an accent 
of sorrowful apprehension, — to the uttermost mite. 
To which Yorick, with his usual carelessness of heart, 
would as often answer with a pshaw ! — and if the 
subject was started in the fields,— with a hop, skip, 
and a jump, at the end of it ; but if close pent up in 
the social chimney corner, where the culprit was 
barricadoed in, with a table and a couple of arm-chairs, 
and could not so readily fly off in a tangent, Eugenius 
would then go on with his lecture upon discretion in 
words to this purpose, though somewhat better put 
together. 

Trust me, dear Yorick, this unwary pleasantry of 
thine will sooner or later bring thee into scrapes and 
difficulties, which no after- wit can extricate thee out 
of. — In these sallies, too oft, I see, it happens, that a 
person laughed at, considers himself in the light of a 
person injured, with all the rights of such a situation 
belonging to him ; and when thou viewest him in that 
light too, and reckons up his friends, his family, his 
kindred and allies, — and musters up with them the 
many recruits which will list under him from a sense 
of common danger ; — ’tis no extravagant arithmetic to 
say, that for every ten jokes, thou hast got an hundred 
enemies ; and till thou hast gone on, and raised a 
swarm of wasps about thine ears, and art half stung 
to death by them, thou wilt never be convinced it 
is so. 

Revenge from some baneful corner shall level a tale 
of dishonour at thee, which no innocence of heart or 
integrity of conduct shall set right. — The fortunes of 
thy house shall totter, — thy character, which led the 
way to them, shall bleed on every side of it, — thy faith 
questioned,— thy works belied, thy wit forgotten, — thy 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


ii 


learning trampled on. To wind up the last scene of 
thy tragedy, Cruelty and Cowardice, twin ruffians, j 
hired and set on by Malice in the dark, shall strike 
together at all thy infirmities and mistakes : — The best 
of us, my dear lad, lie open there,— and trust me, — 
trust me, Yorick, when to gratify a private appetite, it 
is once resolved upon, that an innocent and an help- 
less creature shall be sacrificed, ’tis an easy matter to 
pick up sticks enough from any thicket where it has 
strayed, to make a fire to offer it up with. 

Yorick scarce ever heard this sad vaticination of his 
destiny read over to him, but with a tear stealing from 
his eye, and a promissory look attending it, that he 
was resolved, for the time to come, to ride his tit with 
more sobriety. — But, alas, too late ! a grand con- 
federacy was formed before the first prediction of it. — 
The whole plan of the attack, just as Eugenius had 
foreboded, was put in execution all at once, — with so 
little mercy on the side of the allies, — and so little 
suspicion in Yorick, of what was carrying on against 
him, — that when he thought, good easy man ! full 
surely preferment was o’ ripening, they had smote his 
root, and then he fell, as many a worthy man had fallen 
before him. 

Yorick, however, fought it out with all imaginable 
gallantry for some time ; till overpowered by numbers, 
and worn out at length by the calamities of the war,— 
but more so by the ungenerous manner in which it 
was carried on, — he threw down the sword ; and 
though he kept up his spirits in appearance to the 
last, he died, nevertheless, as was generally thought, 
quite broken-hearted. 

A few hours before Yorick breathed his last, Euge- 
nius stept in with an intent to take his last sight and 
last farewell of him. Upon his drawing Yorick’s 
curtain, and asking how he felt himself, Yorick, look- 
ing up in his face, took hold of his hand,— and, after 
thanking him for the many tokens of his friendship to 


12 


THE STORY OF 


him, for which, he said, if it was their fate to meet 
hereafter,— he would thank him again and again, — he 
told him, he was within a few hours of giving his 
enemies the slip for ever. — I hope not, answered 
Eugenius, with tears trickling down his cheeks, and 
with the tenderest tone that ever man spoke, — I hope 
not, Yorick, said he. Yorick replied, with a look up, 
and a gentle squeeze of Eugenius’s hand, and that was 
all— but it cut Eugenius to his heart.— Come, come, 
Yorick, quoth Eugenius, . wiping his eyes, and sum- 
moning up the man within him, — my dear lad, be 
comforted, — let not all thy spirits and fortitude forsake 
thee at this crisis when thou most wantest them ; — who 
knows what resources are in store, and what the power 
of God may yet do for thee? — Yorick laid his hand 
upon his heart, and gently shook his head ; — for my 
part, continued Eugenius, crying bitterly as he uttered 
the words, — I declare I know not, Yorick, how to part 
with thee, — and would gladly flatter my hopes, added 
Eugenius, cheering up his voice, that there is still 
enough left of thee to make a bishop, — and that I may 
live to see it. I beseech thee, Eugenius, quoth Yorick, 
taking off his night-cap as well as he could with his 
left hand, — his right being still grasped close in that 
of Eugenius, — I beseech thee to take a view of my 
head. — I see nothing that ails it, replied Eugenius. 
Then, alas ! my friend, said Yorick, let me tell you, 
that Tis so bruised and mis-shapened with the blows 
which **** and ****, and some others, have so un- 
handsomely given me in the dark, that I might say 
with Sancho Panca, that should I recover, and 
“ Mitres thereupon he suffered to rain down from 
“ heaven as thick as hail, not one of ’em would fit it.” 
Yorick’s last breath was hanging upon his trembling 
lips ready to depart as he uttered this ; — yet still it 
was uttered with something of a Cervantic tone ; — 
and as he spoke it, Eugenius could perceive a stream 
of lambent fire lighted up for a moment in his eyes ; — 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


13 


faint picture of those flashes of his spirit, which (as 
Shakspeare said of his ancestor) were wont to set the 
table in a roar ! 

Eugenius was convinced from this, that the heart 
of his friend was broke ; he squeezed his hand, — and 
then walked softly out of the room, weeping as he 
walked. Yorick followed Eugenius with his eyes to 
the door, — he then closed them, — and never opened 
them more. 

He lies buried in a corner of his churchyard, in the 

parish of , under a plain marble slab, which 

his friend Eugenius, by leave of his executors, laid 
upon his grave, with no more than these three words 
of inscription, serving both for his epitaph and elegy : 


Alas, poor Yorick ! 


Ten times in a day has Yorick’s ghost the consolation 
to hear his monumental inscription read over with 
such a variety of plaintive tones, as denote a general 
pity and esteem for him; a foot-way crossing the 
churchyard close by the side of his grave, — not a 
passenger goes by without stopping to cast a look 
upon it,— and sighing as he walks on, 

Alas, poor Yorick ! 





CHAPTER II. 

MY FATHER AND MOTHER. 

PON" looking into my mother’s marriage 
settlement, in order to satisfy myself and 
reader in a point necessary to be cleared up, 
before we could proceed any further in this 
history ; — I had the good-fortune to pop upon the very 
thing I wanted, which is so much more fully expressed 
in the deed itself, than ever I can pretend to do it, 
that it would be barbarity to take it out of the lawyer’s 
hand : — It is as follows : 

“ this Enhcnturr further toiincsscth, That the 
“ said Walter Shandy, merchant, in consideration of 
“ the said intended marriage to be had, and, by God’s 
“ blessing, to be well and truly solemnised and con- 
“ summated between the said Walter Shandy and 
“ Elizabeth Mollineux aforesaid, and divers other good 
“ and valuable causes and considerations him there- 
“ unto specially moving, — doth grant, covenant, con- 
“ descend, consent, conclude, bargain, and fully agree 
£f to and with John Dixon and James Turner, Esqrs., 
“ the above-named trustees, &c., &c . — \o iuit, — That 
“ in case it should hereafter so fall out, chance, 
“ happen, or otherwise come to pass, — That the said 
“ Walter Shandy, merchant, shall have left off busi- 
££ ness before the time or times that the said Elizabeth 
“ Mollineux shall, according to the course of nature, 



MY UNCLE TOBY 


15 

“ or otherwise, have left off bearing and bringing 
“ forth children ; — and that, in consequence of the 
“ said Walter Shandy having so left off business, he 
“ shall, in despite, and against the free-will, consent, 
“ and good-liking of the said Elizabeth Mollineux,— 
“ make a departure from the city of London, in order 
“ to retire to, and dwell upon, his estate at Shandy 

“ Hall, in the county of or at any other country 

“ seat, castle, hall, mansion-house, messuage, orgrange- 
“ house, now purchased, or hereafter to be purchased, 
“ or upon any part or parcel thereof : — That then, and 
“ as often as the said Elizabeth Mollineux shall 
“ happen to be enceinte with child or children severally 
“ and lawfully begot, he the said Walter Shandy shall, 
“ at his own proper cost and charges, and out of his 
“ own proper monies, upon good and reasonable 
“ notice, which is hereby agreed to be within six 
“ weeks of her the said Elizabeth Mollineux’s full 
“ reckoning, or time of supposed and computed deli- 
“ very, — pay, or cause to be paid, the sum of one 
“ hundred and twenty pounds of good and lawful 
“ money, to John Dixon and James Turner, Esqrs. 
“ or assigns,— upon trust and confidence, and for and 
“ unto the use and uses, intent, end, and purpose 
“ following : — is ter sag, — That the said sum of 
“ one hundred and twenty pounds shall be paid into 
“ the hands of the said Elizabeth Mollineux, or to be 
“ otherwise applied by them the said Trustees, for the 
“ well and truly hiring of one coach, with able and 
“ sufficient horses, to carry and convey the body of 
“ the said Elizabeth Mollineux, and the child or 
“ children which she shall be then and there enceinte 
“ and pregnant with, — unto the city of London ; and 
“ for the further paying and defraying of all other 
“ incidental costs, charges, and expenses whatsoever, 
“ — in and about, and for, and relating to, her said 
“ intended delivery and lying-in, in the said city or 
“ suburbs thereof. And that the said Elizabeth 


1 6 


THE STORY OF 


“ Mollineux shall and may, from time to time, and 
“ at all such time and times as are here covenanted 
“ and agreed npon, — peaceably and quietly hire the 
“ said coach and horses, and have free ingress, egress, 
“ and regress throughout her journey, in and from the 
“ said coach, according to the tenor, true intent, and 
“ meaning of these presents, without any let, suit, 
“ trouble, disturbance, molestation, discharge, hin- 
“ drance, forfeiture, eviction, vexation, interruption, 
“ or incumbrance whatsoever. — And that it shall 
“ moreover be lawful to and for the said Elizabeth 
“ Mollineux, from time to time, and as oft or often 
“she shall well and truly be advanced in her said 
“pregnancy, to the time heretofore stipulated and 
“ agreed upon, — to live and reside in such place or 
“ places, and in such family or families, and with 
“ such relations, friends, and other persons within the 
“ said city of London, as she, at her own will and 
“ pleasure, notwithstanding her present coverture, 
“ and as if she was a femme sole and unmarried, — 
“shall think fit. — this fttfcentuue further toifnts- 
“ jsrth, That for the more effectually carrying of the 
“ said covenant into execution, the said Walter 
“ Shandy, merchant, doth hereby grant, bargain, sell, 
“ release, and confirm unto the said John Dixon and 
“James Turner, Esqrs., their heirs, executors, and 
“ assigns, in their actual possession, now being, by 
“ virtue of an indenture of bargain and sale for a 
“ year to them the said John Dixon and James 
“ Turner, Esqrs., by him the said Walter Shandy, 
“ merchant, thereof made ; which said bargain and 
“ sale for a year, bears date the day next before 
“ the date of these presents, and by force and 
“ virtue of the statute for transferring of uses into 
“ possession, — ^Ui that the manor and lordships of 

“ Shandy in the county of with all the rights, 

“ members, and appurtenances thereof ; ancl all and 
“every the messuages, houses, buildings, barns, 


MY TJNCLE TOBY. 


17 


“ stables, orchards, gardens, tofts, crofts, garths, 
44 cottages, lands, meadows, feedings, pastures, 
“ marshes, commons, woods, underwoods, drains, 
44 fisheries, waters and water-courses together with 
44 all rents, reversions, services, annuities, fee farms, 
44 knight’s fees, views of f rank-pledge, escheats, 
44 reliefs, mines, quarries, goods and chattels of felons, 
44 and fugitives, felons of themselves, and put in 
44 exigent, deodands, free warrens, and all other 
44 royalties and seignories, rights and jurisdictions, 
44 privileges and hereditaments whatsoever— Jlitb 
44 ■also, the advowson, donation, presentation and free 
44 disposition of the rectory or parsonage of Shandy 
44 aforesaid, and all and every the tenths, tithes, glebe- 
44 lands ” — In three words, — 44 Mv mother was to lay 
44 in, (if she chose it) in London/ 

But in order to put a stop to the practice of any 
unfair play on the part of my mother, for which a 
marriage article of this nature too manifestly opened a 
door, and which indeed had never been thought of at 
all, but for my uncle Toby Shandy ; — a clause was 
added in security of my father, which was this : — 
44 That in case my mother hereafter should, at any 
44 time, put my father to the trouble and expense of a 
44 London journey upon false cries and tokens ; — that 
44 for every such instance she should forfeit all the 
44 rights and title which the covenant gave her to 
44 the next turn ; — but to no more, — and so on, toties 
44 quoties , in as effectual a manner, as if such a cove- 
44 nant betwixt them had not been made.” — This, by 
the way, was no more than what was reasonable ; — 
and yet, as reasonable as it was, I have ever thought 
it hard that the whole weight of the article should 
have fallen entirely, as it did, upon myself. 

But I was begot and born to misfortunes ; — for my 
poor mother, whether it was simply the mere swell 
of imagination and fancy in her ; or how far a strong 
wish and desire to have it so, might mislead her judg- 

2 


i8 


THE STORY OF 


ment ; — in short, whether she was deceived or deceiv- 
ing in this matter, it no way becomes me to decide. 
The fact was this : That, in the latter end of Sep- 
tember, 1717, which was the year before I was born, 
my mother having carried my father up to town much 
against the grain, — he peremptorily insisted upon the 
clause ; — so that I was doomed by marriage articles, 
to have my nose squeezed as flat to my face as if the 
destinies had actually spun me without one. 

My father, as anybody may naturally imagine, 
came down with my mother into the country, in but 
a pettish kind of humour. The first twenty or five- 
and-twenty miles he did nothing in the world but fret 
and tease himself, and indeed iny mother too, about 
the cursed expense, which he said might every shilling 
of it have been saved ; — then what vexed him more 
than everything else was the provoking time of the 
year, — which, as 1 told you, was towards the end of 
September, when his wall-fruit and greengages espe- 
cially, in which he was very curious, were just ready 
for pulling : — “ Had he been whistled up to London, 
“ upon a tomfool’s errand, in any other month of the 
“ whole year, he should not have said three words 
“ about it.” 

For the next two whole stages, no subject would go 
down, but the heavy blow he had sustained from the 
loss of a son, whom it seems he had fully reckoned 
upon in his mind, and registered down in his pocket- 
book, as a second staff for his old age, in case Bobby 
should fail him. “ The disappointment of this, he 
“ said, was ten times more to a wise man than all the 
“ money which the journey, &c. had cost him, put 
“ togetner, — rot the hundred and twenty pounds, — he 
“ did not mind it a rush.” 

From Stilton, all the way to Grantham, nothing in 
the whole affair provoked him so much as the condo- 
lences of his friends, and the foolish figure they should 
both make at church the first Sunday • — of which in 


MY UNCLE TOLY. 


*9 

the satirical vehemence of his wit, now sharpened a 
little by vexation, he would give so many humorous 
and provoking descriptions, — and place his rib and 
self in so many tormenting lights and attitudes in the 
face of the whole congregation ; — that my mother 
declared, these two stages were so truly tragi-comical, 
that she did nothing but laugh and cry in a breath, 
from one end to the other of them all the way. 

From Grantham, till they had crossed the Trent, 
my father was out of all kinds of patience at the vile 
trick and imposition which he fancied my mother had 
put upon him in this affair — “ Certainly, he would 
say to himself over and over again, “the woman 

“ could not be deceived herself f In short, he 

had so many little subjects of disquietude spring- 
ing out of this one affair, all fretting successively in 
his mind as they rose upon it, that my mother, what- 
ever was her journey up, had but an uneasy journey 
of it down. — In a word, as she complained to my uncle 
Toby, he would have tired out the patience of any 
flesh alive. 

Though my father travelled homewards, in none of 
the best of moods, — pshawing and pishing all the way 
down, — yet he had the complaisance to keep the worst 
part of the story still to himself ; — which was the reso- 
lution he had taken of doing himself the justice, 
which my uncle Toby’s clause in the marriage settle- 
ment empowered him ; nor was it till thirteen months 
after, that she had the least intimation of his design ; 
— when my father, happening to be a little chagrined 
and out of temper, — took occasion as they lay chatting 
gravely in bed, talking over what was to come, — to let 
her know that she must accommodate herself as well 
as she could to the bargain made between them in 
their marriage deeds ; which was to lie-in of her 
next child in the country to balance the last year’s 
journey. 

My father was a gentleman of many virtues,— but 

2—2 


20 


THE STORY OF 


lie had a strong spice of that in his temper which 
might, or might not, add to the number. — Tis known 
by the name of perseverance in a good cause, and of 
obstinacy in a bad one : of this my mother had so 
much knowledge, that she knew ’twas to no purpose 
to make any remonstrance, — so she e’en resolved to 
sit down quietly, and make the most of it. 

As the point was agreed, or rather determined, that 
my mother should lie-in of me in the country, she 
took her measures accordingly ; for which purpose she 
began to cast her eyes upon the midwife, whom you 
have so often heard me mention ; and before the week 
was well got round, as the famous Dr. Manningham 
was not to be had, she had come to a final deter- 
mination in her mind,— notwithstanding there was a 
scientific operator within so near a call as eight miles 
of us, — absolutely determined to trust her life, and 
mine with it, into no soul’s hands, but this old 
woman’s only. Now this I like, when we cannot get 
at the very thing we wish, never to take up with the 
next best in degree to it, — no ; that’s pitiful beyond 
description. . Only what lessened the honour of it 
somewhat, in my mother’s case, was, that she could 
not heroine it into so violent and hazardous an ex- 
treme, as one in her situation might have wished, 
because the old midwife had really some little claim 
to be depended upon, — as much, at least, as success 
could give her ; having, in the course of her practice 
of near twenty years in the parish, brought every 
mother’s son of them into the world without any one 
slip or accident which could fairly be laid to her 
account. 

These facts, tho’ they had their weight, yet did 
not altogether satisfy some few scruples and uneasi- 
nesses which hung on my father’s spirits in relation 
to his choice. — To say nothing of the natural work- 
ings of humanity and justice,— or of the yearnings of 
parental and connubial love, all which prompted him 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


21 


to leave as little to hazard as possible in a case of 
this kind ; — he felt himself concerned in a particular 
manner, that all should go right in the present case ; — 
from the accumulated sorrow he lay open to, should 
any evil betide his wife and child in lying-in at 
Shandy Hall. — He knew the world judged by events, 
and would add to his afflictions in such a misfortune, 
by loading him with the whole blame of it. — “Alas 
“ o’day ! had Mrs. Shandy, poor gentlewoman ! had 
“ but her wish in going up to town just to lie-in and 
“ come down again ; — which they say, she begged and 
“ prayed for upon her bare knees, — and which, in my 
“ opinion, considering the fortune which Mr. Shandy 
“ got with her,— was no such mighty matter to have 
“ complied with, the lady and her babe might both of 
“ ’em have been alive at this hour.” 

This exclamation, my father knew, was unanswer- 
able ; — and yet it was not merely to shelter himself, — 
nor was it altogether for the care of his offspring and 
wife that he seemed so extremely anxious about this 
point ; my father had extensive views of things, — and 
stood, moreover, as he thought, deeply concerned in 
it for the public good, from the dread he entertained 
of the bad uses an ill-fated instance might be put to. 

He was very sensible that all political writers upon 
the subject had unanimously agreed and lamented, 
from the beginning of Queen Elizabeth’s reign down 
to his own time, that the current of men and money 
towards the metropolis, upon one frivolous errand or 
another, — set in so strong, — as to become dangerous 
to our civil rights though, by the bye— a current 
was not the image he took most delight in,— a dis- 
temper was here his favourite metaphor, and he would 
run it down into a perfect allegory, by maintaining it 
was identically the same in the body national as in 
the body natural, where blood and spirits were driven 
up into the head faster than they could find their ways 
down ; — a stoppage of circulation must ensue, which 


22 


THE STORY OF 


was death in both cases. There was little danger, he 
would say, of losing our liberties by French politics 
and French invasions ' but he verily feared that in 
some violent push we should go off all at once in a 
state of apoplexy ; — and then he would say, “ The 
“ Lord have mercy upon us all ! ,} 

“Why are there so few palaces and gentlemen’s 
“ seats,” he would ask, with some emotion, as he 
walked across the room, “ throughout so many deli- 
“ cious provinces in France 1 Whence is it that the 
“ few remaining chateaus amongst them are so dis- 
“ mantled, — so unfurnished, and in so ruinous and 
“ desolate a condition 1 — Because, sir,” (he would say) 
“ in that kingdom no man has any country interest to 
“ support ; — the little interest of any kind which any 
“ man has anywhere in it is concentrated in the court, 
“ and the looks of the Grand Monarch : by the sun- 
“ shine of whose countenance, or the clouds which 
“ pass across it, every Frenchman lives or dies.” 

For all these reasons, private and public, put 
together, — my father was for having the man midwife 
by all means,— my mother by no means. My father 
begged and entreated she would for once recede from 
her prerogative in this matter, and suffer him to 
choose for her • — my mother, on the contrary, insisted 
upon her privilege in this matter to choose for herself, 
— and have no mortal’s help but the old woman’s. 
What could my father do 'l He was almost at his wit’s 
end ; — talked it over with her in all moods ; — placed 
his arguments in all lights ; — argued the matter with 
her like a Christian — like a heathen, — like a hus- 
band, — like a father, — like a patriot, — like a man ; — 
f My mother answered everything only like a woman ; 
which was a little hard upon her ; — for as she could 
not assume and fight it out behind such a variety of 
characters, — ’twas no fair match; — ’twas seven to 
one. — What could my mother dol — She had the 
advantage (otherwise she had been certainly over- 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


23 

powered) of a small reinforcement of chagrin personal 
at the bottom, which bore her up, and enabled her to 
dispute the affair with my father with so equal an 
advantage, — that both sides sung Te Deum. In a 
word, my mother was to have the old woman, — and 
the operator was to have licence to drink a bottle of 
wine with my father and my uncle Toby Shandy in 
the back parlour, — for which he was to be paid five 
guineas. 

I would sooner undertake to explain the hardest 
problem in geometry than pretend to account for it, 
that a gentleman of my father’s great good sense 
could be capable of entertaining a notion in his head 
so out of the common track ; — and that was in respect 
to the choice and imposition of Christian names, on 
which he thought a great deal more depended than 
what superficial minds were capable of conceiving. 

The hero of Cervantes argued not the point with 
more seriousness, — nor had he more faith, — than my 
father had on those of Trismegistus or Archimedes, 
on the one hand, — or of Nyky and Simkin on the 
other. How many Caesars and Pompeys, he would 
say, by mere inspiration of the names, have been 
rendered worthy of them 1 And how many, he would 
add, are there, who might have done exceeding well 
in the world, had not their characters and spirits been 
totally depressed and Nicodemus’d into nothing 1 

I see plainly, sir, by your looks (or as the case hap- 
pened), my father would say, — that you do not heartily 
subscribe to this opinion of mine, — Your son ! — your 
dear son, — from whose sweet and open temper you have 
so much to expect.— Your Billy, sir ! — would you, for 
the world, have called him Judas % — Would you, my 
dear sir, he would say, laying his hand upon your 
breast with the genteelest address,— and in that soft 
and irresistible piano of voice, which the nature of 
the argumentum ad hominem absolutely requires, — 
Would you, sir, if a Jew of a godfather had proposed 
the name for your child, and offered you his purse 


TIIJS STORY OF 


24 

along with it, would you have consented to such a 
desecration of him'? — O my God! he would say, 
looking up, if I know your temper right, sir,— you are 
incapable of it ; — you would have trampled upon the 
offer ; — you would have thrown the temptation at the 
tempter’s head with abhorrence. — In a word, I repeat 
it over again he was serious * — and, in consequence 
of it, he would lose all kind 01 patience whenever he 
saw people, especially of condition, who should have 
known better, — as careless and as indifferent about 
the name they imposed upon their child, — or more so, 
than in the choice of Ponto or Cupid for their puppy 
dog. 

This, he would say, looked ill and had, moreover, 
this particular aggravation in it, viz. That when once 
a vile name was wrongfully or injudiciously given, 
’twas not like the case of a man’s character, which, 
when wronged, might hereafter be cleared; — and, 
possibly, some time or other, if not in the man’s life, 
at least after his death, — be, somehow or other, set to 
rights with the world : But the injury of this, he 
would say, could never be undone ; — nay, he doubted 
even whether an act of parliament could reach it. 

It was observable, that though my father, in conse- 
quence of this opinion, had, as I have told you, the 
strongest likings and dislikings towards certain names ; 
— that there were still numbers of names which hung 
so equally in the balance before him, that they were 
absolutely indifferent to him. Jack, Dick, and Tom, 
were of this class : These my father called neutral 
names : — affirming of them, without a satire, that there 
had been as many knaves and fools, at least, as wise 
and good men, since the world began, who had indif- 
ferently borne them ; — so that, like equal forces acting 
against each other in contrary directions, he thought 
they mutually destroyed each other’s effects ; for which 
reason, he would often declare, he would not give a 
cherry-stone to choose amongst them. Bob, which was 


MY UNCLE TOLY. 


25 

my brother’s name, was another of these nentral kinds 
of Christian names, which operated very little either 
way ; and as my father happened to be at Epsom, 
when it was given him, — he would oft-times thank 
heaven it was no worse. Andrew was something 
like a negative quantity in algebra with him ; — ’twas 
worse, he said, than nothing — William stood pretty 
high : — Numps again was low with him : — and Nick, 
he said, was the devil. 

But, of all the names in the universe, he had the 
most unconquerable aversion for Tristram ; — he had 
the lowest and most contemptible opinion of it of 
anything in the world, — thinking it could possibly 
produce nothing in rerum natura , but what was 
extremely mean and pitiful : so that in the midst of 
a dispute on the subject, in which, by the bye, he was 
frequently involved, — he would sometimes break olf 
in a sudden and spirited Epiphonema, or rather Ero- 
tesis, raised a third, and sometimes a full fifth, above 
the key of the discourse, — and demand it categorically 
of his antagonist, whether he would take upon him to 
say, he had ever remembered, — whether he had ever 
read, — or even whether he had ever heard tell of a 
man, called Tristram, performing anything great or 
worth recording ! — No, — he would say, — Tristram ! — 
The thing is impossible. 




CHAPTER III. 

CAPTAIN SHANDY AND HIS HOBBY-HORSE. 

jgrcrelgj WONDER wheat’s all that noise, and running 
backwards and forwards for, above stairs, 
6§I| quoth my father, addressing himself, after 
an hour and a half’s silence, to my uncle 
Toby, — who, you must know, was sitting on the oppo- 
site side of the fire, smoking his social pipe all the 
time, in mute contemplation of a new pair of black 
plush-breeches which he had got on : — What can they 
be doing, brother 1 — quoth my father, — we can scarce 
hear ourselves talk. 

I think, replied my uncle Toby, taking his pipe from 
his mouth, and striking the head of it two or three 
times upon the nail of his left thumb, as he began his 
sentence, — “ I think,” says he : — but to enter rightly 
into my uncle Toby’s sentiments upon this matter, 
you must be made to enter first a little into his cha- 
racter, the outlines of which I shall just give you, and 
then the dialogue between him and my father will go 
on as well again. 

His humour was of that particular species, which 
does honour to our atmosphere ; and I should have 
made no scruple of ranking him amongst one of the 
firstrate productions of it, had not there appeared 
too many strong lines in it of a family likeness, which 
showed that he derived the singularity of his temper 
more from blood, than either wind or water, or any 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


27 

modifications or combinations of them whatever : and 
I have, therefore, ofttimes wondered, that my father, 
though I believe he had his reasons for it, upon his 
observing some tokens of eccentricity in my course 
when I was a boy, — should never once endeavour to 
account for them in this way ; for all the Shandy 
Family were of an original character throughout I 
mean the males, — the females had no character at all, 
—except, indeed, my great aunt, Dinah, who, about 
sixty years ago, was married by the coachman ; for 
which _ my father, according to his hypothesis of 
Christian names, would often say, she might thank 
her godfathers and godmothers. It will seem very 
strange that an event of this kind, so many years 
after it had happened, should be reserved for the 
interruption of the peace and unity, which otherwise 
so cordially subsisted, between my father and my 
uncle Toby. One would have thought, that the whole 
force of the misfortune should have spent and wasted 
itself in the family at first, — as is generally the case : — 
but nothing ever wrought with our family after the 
ordinary way. My uncle Toby Shandy, was a gentle- 
man, who, with the virtues that usually constitute the 
character of a man of honour and rectitude, — pos- 
sessed one in a very eminent degree, which is seldom 
or never put into the catalogue ; and that was a most 
extreme and unparalleled modesty of nature. Which- 
ever way my uncle Toby came by it, ’twas nevertheless 
modesty in the truest sense of it ; and that is, not in 
regard to words, for he was so unhappy as to have very 
little choice in them, — but to things ; — and this kind 
of modesty so possessed him, and it arose to such a 
height in him, as almost to equal, if such a thing could 
be, even the modesty of a woman : which happening 
to be somewhat subtilized and rarified by the constant 
heat of a little family pride, — they both so wrought 
together within him, that he could never bear to hear 
the affair of my aunt Dinah touched upon, but with 


28 


THE STORY OF 


the greatest emotion. — The least hint of it was enough 
to make the blood fly into his face ; but when my 
father enlarged upon the story in mixed companies, 
which the illustration of his hypothesis frequently 
obliged him to do, — the unfortunate blight of one of 
the fairest branches of the family, would set my uncle 
Toby’s honour and modesty o’ bleeding ; and he would 
often take my father aside, in the greatest concern 
imaginable, to expostulate and tell him, he would give 
him anything in the world, only to let the story rest. 

My father, I believe, had the truest love and tender- 
ness for my uncle Toby, that ever one brother bore 
towards another, and would have done anything in 
nature, which one brother in reason could have desired 
of another, to have made my uncle Toby’s heart easy in 
this, or any other point. But this lay out of his power. 

My father, as I told you, was a philosopher in grain, 
— speculative, — systematical; and my aunt Dinah’s 
affair was a matter of as much consequence to him, as 
the retrogradation of the planets to Copernicus. 

This contrariety of humours betwixt my father and 
my uncle, was the source of many a fraternal squabble. 
The one could not bear to hear the tale of family 
disgrace recorded — and the other would scarce ever 
let a day pass to an end without some hint at it. 

For Goa’s sake, my uncle Toby would cry,— and for 
my sake and for all our sakes, my dear brother 
Shandy, — do let this story of our aunt’s and her ashes 
sleep in peace ; how can you, — how can you have so 
little feeling and compassion for the character of our 
family:— What is the character of a family to an 
hypothesis? my father would reply. — Nay, if you 
come to that — what is the life of a family ? — The life 
of a family !— my uncle Toby would say, throwing 
himself back in his arm-chair, and lifting up his 
hands, his eyes, and one leg. — Yes, the life,— my father 
would say, maintaining his point, how many thousands 
of them are there every year that comes, cast away 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


29 


(in all civilized countries at least) — and considered as 
nothing but common air, in competition of an hypo- 
thesis. In my plain sense of things, my uncle Toby 
would answer,— every such instance is downright 
Murder, let who will commit it. — There lies your mis- 
take, my father would reply ; for in Foro Sdentice there 
is no such thing as Murder. — Tis only Death, brother. 

My uncle Toby would never offer to answer this by 
any other kind of argument, than that of whistling 
half a dozen bars of Lillibullero, — You must know it 
was the usual channel through which his passions 
got vent, when anything shocked or surprised him ; — 
but especially when anything, which he deemed very 
absurd, was offered. 

Now the hobby-horse which my uncle Toby always 
rode upon, was, in my opinion, a hobby-horse well worth 
giving a description of, if it was only upon the score 
of his great singularity ; for you might have travelled 
from York to Dover, from Dover to Penzance in Corn- 
wall, and from Penzance to York back again, and not 
have seen such another upon the road ; or if you had 
seen such a one, whatever haste you had been in, you 
must infallibly have stopped to have taken a view of 
him. 

In good truth my uncle Toby mounted him with so 
much pleasure, and he carried my uncle Toby so well, 
that he troubled his head very little with what the 
world said or thought about it. But to go on regu- 
larly, I only beg you will give me leave to acquaint 
you first how my uncle Toby came by him. 

The wound in my uncle Toby’s groin, which he 
received at the siege of Namur, rendering him unfit 
for the service, it was thought expedient he should re- 
turn to England, in order, if possible, to be set to rights. 
He was four years totally confined— part of it to 
his bed, and all of it to his room ; and in the course 
of his cure, which was all that time in hand, suffered 
unspeakable miseries,— owing to a succession of exfo- 


TRE STORY OF 


3 ° 

liation from tlie os pubis , and the outward edge of 
that part of the coxendix called the os ileum , — both 
which bones were dismally crushed, as much by the 
irregularity of the stone, which I told you was broke 
off the parapet, — as by its size, — (though it was pretty 
large) which inclined the surgeons all along to think, 
that the great injury which it had done my uncle 
Toby’s groin, was more owing to the gravity of the 
stone itself, than to the projectile force of it— which he 
would often tell him was a great happiness. 

My father at that time was just beginning business 
in London, and had taken a house ; — and as the truest 
friendship and cordiality subsisted between the two 
brothers, — and that my father thought my uncle Toby 
could nowhere be so well nursed and taken care of as 
in his own house, — he assigned him the very best 
apartment in it. — And what was a much more sincere 
mark of his affection still, he would never suffer a 
friend or an acquaintance to step into the house on 
any occasion, but he would take him by the hand, 
and lead him upstairs to see his brother Toby, and 
chat an hour by his bedside. 

The history of a soldier’s wound beguiles the pain 
of it ; — my uncle’s visitors at least thought so, and in 
their daily calls upon him, from the courtesy arising 
out of that belief, they would frequently turn the dis- 
course to that subject, — and from that subject the dis- 
course would generally roll on to the siege itself. 

These conversations were infinitely kind ; and my 
uncle Toby received great relief from them, and would 
have received much more, but that they brought him 
into some unforeseen perplexities, which, for three 
months together, retarded his cure greatly ; and if he 
had not hit upon an expedient to extricate himself out 
of them, I verily believe they would have laid him in 
his grave. 

I must remind the reader, in case he has read the 
history of King William’s wars, — but if he has not, — 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


3 * 

I then inform him, that one of the most memorable 
attacks in that siege, was that which was made by the 
English and Dutch upon the point of the advanced 
counterscarp, between the gate of St. Nicholas, which 
inclosed the great sluice or water-stop, where the 
English were terribly exposed to the shot of the coun- 
ter-guard and demi-bastion of St. Roch ; the issue of 
which hot dispute* in three words, was this ; that the 
Dutch lodged themselves upon the counter-guard, — 
and that the English made themselves masters of the 
covered way before St. Nicholas’s gate, notwithstand- 
ing the gallantry of the French officers, who exposed 
themselves upon the glacis sword in hand. 

As this was the principal attack of which my uncle 
Toby was an eye-witness at Namur,— the army of the 
besiegers being cut off, by the confluence of the Maes 
and Sambre, from seeing much of each other’s opera- 
tions, — my uncle Toby was generally more eloquent 
and particular in his account of it ; and the many 
perplexities he was in, arose out of the almost insur- 
mountable difficulties he found in telling his story 
intelligibly, and giving such clear ideas of the dif- 
ferences and distinctions between the scarp and coun- 
terscarp, — the glacis and covered- way, — the half-moon 
and ravelin, — as to make his company fully compre- 
hend where and what he was about. . 

What rendered the account of this affair the more 
intricate to my uncle Toby, was this, — that in the at- 
tack of the counterscarp before the gate of St. Nicho- 
las, extending itself from the bank of the Maes, quite 
up to the great water-stop, — the ground was cut and 
cross cut with such a multitude of dykes, drains, 
rivulets, and sluices on all sides,— and he would get 
so sadly bewildered and set fast amongst them, that 
frequently he could neither get backwards or forwards 
to save his life ; and was ofttimes obliged to give up 
the attack upon that very account only. 

These perplexing rebuffs gave my uncle Toby 


THE STOEY OF 


32 

Shandy more perturbations than you would imagine ; 
and as my father’s kindness to him was continually 
dragging up fresh friends and fresh inquirers, — he 
had but a very uneasy task of it. 

No doubt my uncle Toby had great command of 
himself, — and could guard appearances, I believe, as 
well as most men ; — yet any one may imagine, that 
when he could not retreat out of the ravelin without 
getting into the half -moon, or get out of the covered 
way without falling- down the counterscarp, or cross 
the . dyke without danger of slipping into the ditch, 
but that he must have fretted and fumed inwardly ; — 
he did so ; he could not philosophise upon it ; — ’twas 
enough he felt it was. so, — and having sustained the 
pain and sorrows of it for three months together, he 
was resolved some way or other to extricate himself. 

He was one morning lying upon his back in his 
bed, the anguish and nature of the wound upon his 
groin suffering him to lie in no other position, when a 
thought came into his head, that if he could purchase 
such a thing, and have it pasted down upon a board, 
as a large map of the fortification of the town and 
citadel of Namur, with its environs, it might be a 
means of giving him ease. — I take notice of his desire 
to have the environs along with the town and citadel, 
for this reason, — because my uncle Toby’s wound was 
got in one. of the traverses, about thirty toises from 
the returning angle of the trench, opposite to the 
salient angle of the demi-bastion of St. Roch ; — so 
that he was pretty confident he could stick a pin upon 
the identical spot of ground where he was standing 
when the stone struck him. 

When my uncle Toby got his map of Namur to his 
mind, he began immediately to apply himself, and 
with the utmost diligence, to the study of it ; for 
nothing being of more importance to him than his 
recovery, and his recovery depending, as you have 
read, upon the passions and affections of his mind, it 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


33 

behoved him to take the nicest care to make himself 
so far master of his subject, as to be able to talk upon 
it without emotion. 

In a fortnight’s close and painful application, which, 
by-the-bye, did my uncle Toby’s wound, upon his 
groin, no good, — he was enabled, by the help of some 
marginal documents at the feet of the elephant, 
together with Gobesius’s military architecture and 
pyroballogy,. translated from the Flemish, to form his 
discourse with passable perspicuity ; and before he 
was two full months gone, — he was right eloquent 
upon it, and could make not only the attack of the 
advanced counterscarp with great order ; — but having, 
by that time, gone much deeper into the art, than 
what his first motive made necessary, my uncle Toby 
was able to cross the Maes and Sambre ; make di- 
versions as far as Yauban’s line, the abbey of Salfines, 
&c., and give his visitors as distinct a history of each 
of their attacks, as of that of the gate of St. Nicholas, 
where he had the honour to receive his wound. 

But the desire of knowledge, like the thirst of 
riches, increases ever with the acquisition of it. The 
more my uncle Toby pored over his map, the more he 
took a liking to it. 

The more my uncle Toby drank of this sweet foun- 
tain of science, the greater was the heat and impatience 
of his thirst, so that before the first year of his con- 
finement had well gone round, there was scarce a 
fortified town in Italy or Flanders, for which, by one 
means or other, he had not procured a plan, reading 
over as he got thein, and carefully collating therewith 
the history of their sieges, their demolitions, their 
improvements, and new works, all which he would 
read with that intense application and delight, that 
he would forget himself, his wound, his confinement, 
his dinner. 

In the second year my uncle Toby purchased 
Bomelli and Cataneo, translated from the Italian ; — 

3 


THF STORY OF 


34 

likewise Stevinus, Moralis, the Chevalier de Ville, 
Lorini, Coehorn, Sheeter, the Count de Pagan, the 
Marshal Yauban, Mons. Blondel, with almost as many 
more books of military architecture, as Don Quixote 
was found to have of chivalry, when the curate and 
barber invaded his library. 

Towards the beginning of the third year, which was 
in August, ninety-nine, my uncle Toby found it neces- 
sary to understand a little of projectiles : — and having 
judged it best to draw his knowledge from the fountain- 
head, he began with N. Tartaglia, who it seems was 
the first man who detected the imposition of a cannon- 
ball’s doing all that mischief under the notion of a 
right line — This N. Tartaglia proved to my uncle 
Toby to be an impossible thing. 

Endless is the search of truth ! 

No sooner was my uncle Toby satisfied which road 
the cannon-ball did not go, but he was insensibly led 
on, and resolved in his mind to enquire and find out 
which road the ball did go : for which purpose he was 
obliged to set off afresh with old Maltus, and studied 
him devoutly. — He proceeded next to Gallileo and 
Torricellius, wherein, by certain geometrical rules, 
infallibly laid down, he found the precise path to be 
a parabola— or else an hyperbola, — and that the para- 
meter of the conic section of the said path, was to the 
quantity and amptitude in a direct ratio, as the whole 
line to the sine of double the angle of incidence, and 

that the semiparameter, stop ! my dear uncle 

Toby,— stop ! go not one foot farther into this thorny 
and bewildered track, — intricate are the steps ! in- 
tricate are the mazes of this labyrinth ! Is it fit, good- 
natured man ! thou shouldest sit up, with the wound 
upon thy groin, whole nights baking thy blood with 
hectic watchings ] — Alas ! Twill exasperate thy symp- 
toms, — check thy perspiration, — evaporate thy spirits, 
— waste thy animal strength, — dry up thy radical 
moisture,— bring thee into a costive habit of body, — 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


35 

impair thy health, and hasten all the infirmities of thy 
old age. — 0 my uncle ! my uncle Toby ! 

In the latter end of the third year, my uncle Toby 
perceiving that the parameter and semi-parameter of 
the conic section angered his wound, he left off the 
study of projectiles in a kind of a huff, and betook 
himself to the practical part of the fortification only ; 
the pleasure of which, like a spring held back, re- 
turned upon him with redoubled force. 

It was in this year that my uncle began to break in 
upon the daily regularity of a clean shirt, — to dismiss 
his barber unshaven, — and to allow his surgeon scarce 
time sufficient to dress his wound, concerning himself 
so little about it, as not to ask him once in seven 
times dressing how it went on : when lo ! all of a 
sudden, for the change was as quick as lightning, he 
began to sigh heavily for his recovery, — complained to 
my father, grew impatient with the surgeon; — and 
one morning as he heard his foot coming up stairs, 
he shut up his books, and thrust aside his instruments, 
in order to expostulate with him upon the protraction 
of the cure, which, he told him, might surely have 
been accomplished at least by that time : — he dwelt 
long upon the miseries he had undergone, and the 
sorrows of his four years’ melancholy imprisonment ; 
—adding, that had it not been for the kind looks, and 
fraternal cheerings of the best of brothers, — he had 
long since sunk under his misfortunes. My father 
was by : my uncle Toby’s eloquence brought tears into 
his eyes ’twas unexpected — my uncle Toby, by 
nature, was not eloquent it had the greater effect. 
The surgeon was confounded ; — not that there wanted 
grounds for such, or greater, marks of impatience, but 
’twas unexpected too; in the four years he had 
attended him, he had never seen anything like it in 
my uncle Toby’s carriage ;— he had never once dropped 
one fretful or discontented word, — he had been all 
patience, — all submission. 


3—2 


THE STORY OF 


36 

We lose the right of complaining sometimes by- 
forbearing it ; — blit we often treble the force : — the 
surgeon was astonished ; — but much more so, when he 
heard my uncle Toby go on, and peremptorily insist 
upon his healing up the wound directly, — or sending 
for Monsieur Ronjat, the king’s serjeant-surgeon, to do 
it for him. 

When my uncle Toby’s wound was near well, and as 
soon as the surgeon recovered his surprise, and could 
get leave to say as much — he told him, ’twas just 
beginning to incarnate ; and that if no fresh exfolia- 
tion happened, which there was no sign of, — it would 
be dried up in five or six weeks. The. sound of as 
many Olympiads twelve hours before, would have 
conveyed an idea of shorter duration to my uncle 
Toby’s mind. The succession of his ideas was now 
rapid, — he broiled with impatience to put his design 
in execution; — and so, without consulting farther with 
any soul living, — which, by the bye, I think is right, 
when you are predetermined to take no one soul’s ad- 
vice, — he privately ordered Trim, his man, to pack up 
a bundle of lint and dressings, and hire a chariot and 
four to be at the door exactly by twelve o’clock that 
day, when he knew my father would be upon ’Change. 
— So leaving a bank-note upon the table for the sur- 
geon’s care of him, and a letter of tender thanks for 
his brother’s— he packed up his maps, his books of 
fortification, his instruments, &c., and by the help of 
a crutch on one side, and Trim on the other,— my 
uncle Toby embarked for Shandy Hall. 

The reason, or rather the rise, of this sudden demi- 
gration, was as follows : 

The table in my uncle Toby’s room, and at which, 
the night before this change happened, he was sitting 
with his maps, &c., about him, — being somewhat of 
the smallest, for that infinity of great and small in- 
struments of knowledge which usually lay crowded 
upon it — he had the accident, in reaching over for his 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 37 

tobacco-box, to throw down his compasses, and in 
stooping to take the compasses np, with his sleeve he 
threw down his case of instruments and snuffers ; — 
and as the dice took a run against him, in his en- 
deavouring to catch the snuffers in falling, — he thrust 
Monsieur Blondel off the table, and Count de Pagan 
o’top of him. 

’Twas to no purpose for a man, lame as my uncle 
Toby was, to think of redressing all these evils by 
himself,— he rung his bell for his man Trim ; — “ Trim/’ 
quoth my uncle Toby, “ prithee see what confusion I 
have here been making — I . must have some better 
contrivance, Trim. — Canst not thou take my rule, and 
measure the length and breadth of this table, and 
then go and bespeak me one as big again V’ — “Yes, 
an’ please your honour/’ replied Trim, making a bow ; 
“ but I hope your honour will be soon well enough to 
get down to your country seat, where, — as your honour 
takes so much pleasure in fortification, we could 
manage this matter to a T.” 

I must here inform you, that this servant of my 
uncle Toby’s, who went by the name of Trim, had 
been a corporal in my uncle’s own company, — his real 
name was James Butler, — but having got the nick- 
name of Trim in the regiment, my uncle Toby, unless 
when he happened to be very angry with him, would 
never call him by any other name. 

The poor fellow had been disabled for the service 
by a wound on his left knee by a musket bullet, at the 
battle of Landen, which was two years before the 
affair of Namur ; — and as the fellow was well beloved 
in the regiment, and a handy fellow in the bargain, my 
uncle Toby took him for his servant ; and of excellent 
use was he, attending my uncle Toby in the camp and 
in his quarters as valet, groom, barber, cook, sempster, 
and nurse, and, indeed, from first to last, waited upon 
him and served him with great fidelity and affec- 
tion, 


38 


TEE STOUT OF 


My uncle Toby loved the man in return, and what 
attached him more to him still, was the similitude of 
their knowledge for Corporal Trim (for so, for the 
future, I shall call him), by four years’ occasional 
attention to his master’s discourse upon fortified 
towns, and the advantage of prying and peeping 
continually into his master’s plans, <fcc., exclusive and 
besides what he gained hobby-horsically, as a body- 
servant, Non Hobby -horsical per se ; — had become no 
mean proficient in the science ; and was thought, by 
the cook and chambermaid, to know as much of the 
nature of strongholds as my uncle Toby himself. 

I have but one more stroke to give to finish Corporal 
Trim’s character, — and it is the only dark line in it. 
The fellow loved to advise, — or rather to hear himself 
talk ; his carriage, however, was so perfectly respectful, 
’twas easy to keep him silent when you had him so ; 
but set his tongue agoing, — you had no hold of him ; 
he was voluble ; — the eternal interlardings of your 
Honour, with the respectfulness of Corporal Trim’s 
manner, interceding so strong in behalf of his elocu- 
tion, — that though you might have been incommoded, 
— you could not well be angry. My uncle Toby was 
seldom either the one or the other with him, — or, at 
least, this fault in Trim broke no squares with ’em. 
My uncle Toby, as I said, loved the man ; — and be- 
sides, as he ever looked upon a faithful servant — but as 
an humble friend, — he could not bear to stop his 
mouth. — Such was Corporal Trim. 

If I durst presume, continued Trim, to give your 
honour my advice, and speak my opinion in this 
matter. — Thou art welcome, Trim, quoth my uncle 
Toby, — speak, — speak what thou thinkest upon the 
subject, man, without fear. Why then, replied Trim, 
(not hanging his ears, and scratching his head like a 
country lout, but) stroking his hair back from his fore- 
head, and standing erect as before his division, — I 
think, quoth Trim, advancing his left, which was his 


3IT UNCLE TOBY. 


39 

lame leg, a little forwards, — and pointing with his 
right hand open towards a map of Dunkirk, which was 
pinned against the hangings, — I think, quoth Corporal 
Trim, with humble submission to your honour’s better 
judgment,— that these ravelins, bastions, curtains, and 
horn-works, make but a poor, contemptible, fiddle- 
faddle piece of work of it here upon paper ? compared 
to what your honour and I could make of it, were we 
in the country by ourselves, and had but a rood or a 
rood and a half of ground to do what we pleased 
with : as summer is coming on, continued Trim, your 
honour might sit out of doors, and give me the nogra- 
phy — (call it ichnography, quoth my uncle) — of the 
town or citadel, your honour was pleased to sit down 
before, — and I will be shot by your honour upon the 
glacis of it, if I did not fortify it to your honour’s 
mind. — I dare say thou would’st, Trim, quoth my 
uncle. — For if your honour, continued the corporal, 
could but mark me the polygon, with its exact lines 
and angles. — That I could do very well, quoth my 
uncle. — I would begin with the foss4, and if your 
honour could tell me the proper breadth. — I 
can to a hair’s breadth, Trim, replied my uncle.— I 
would throw out the earth upon this hand towards 
the town for the scarp, — and on that hand towards the 
campaign for the counterscarp. — Very right, Trim, 
quoth my uncle Toby. — And when I had sloped them 
to your mind, — an’ please your honour, I would face 
the glacis, as the finest fortifications are done in 
Flanders, with sods, — and as your honour knows they 
should be, — and I would make the walls and parapets 
with sods too. — The best engineers call them gazons, 
Trim, said my uncle Toby. — Whether they are gazons 
or sods, is not much matter, replied Trim ; your 
honour knows they are ten times beyond a facing 
either of brick or stone. —I know they are, Trim, in 
some respects, — quoth my uncle Toby, nodding liis 
head ; — for a cannon ball enters into the gazon right 


THE STORY OF 


40 

onwards, without bringing any rubbish down with it, 
which might fill the foss6 (as was the case at St. 
Nicholas’s gate), and facilitate the passage over it. 

Your honour understands these matters, replied 
Corporal Trim, better than any officer in his Majesty’s 
service but would your honour please to let the 
bespeaking of the table alone, and let us but go into 
the country, I would work under your honour’s direc- 
tions like a horse, and make fortifications for you 
something like a tansy, with all their batteries, 
saps, ditches, and palisadoes, that it should be 
worth all the world’s riding twenty miles to go and 
see it. 

My uncle Toby blushed as red as scarlet as Trim 
went on ; — but it was not a blush of guilt, — of 
modesty, — or of anger ; — it was a blush of joy ; — he 
was fired with Corporal Trim’s project and descrip- 
tion. — Trim ! said my uncle Toby, thou hast said 
enough. — We might begin the campaign, continued 
Trim, on the very day that his Majesty and the allies 
take the field, and demolish them town by town as 

fast as Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, say no more. 

— Your honour, continued Trim, might sit in your 
arm-chair (pointing to it) this fine weather, giving me 

your orders, and I would Say no more, Trim, 

quoth my uncle Toby. — Besides, your honour would 
get not only pleasure and good pastime, — but good 
air, and good exercise, and good health, — and your 
honour’s wound would be well in a month. Thou 
hast said enough, Trim, — quoth my uncle Toby (put- 
ting his hand into his breeches-pocket) — I like thy 
project mightily. — And if your honour pleases, I’ll 
this moment go and buy a pioneer’s spade to take 
down with us, and I’ll bespeak a shovel and a pickaxe, 

and a couple of Say no more, Trim, quoth my 

uncle Toby, leaping up upon one leg, quite overcome 
with rapture, — and thrusting a guinea into Trim’s 
hand,— Trim, said my uncle Toby, say no more ; — but 


MY UNCLE TOLY. 


4i 

go down, Trim, this moment, my lad, and bring up 
my supper this instant. 

Trim ran down and brought up his master’s supper, — 
to no purpose Trim’s plan of operation ran so in 
my uncle Toby’s head, he could not taste it.— Trim, 
quoth my uncle Toby, get me to bed.— ’Twas all one.— 
Corporal Trim’s description had fired his imagina- 
tion,— my uncle Toby could not shut his eyes.— The 
more he considered it, the more bewitching the scene 
appeared to him ; — so that, two full hours before 
daylight, he had come to a final determination, and 
had concerted the whole plan of his and Corporal 
Trim’s decampment. 

. My uncle Toby had a little neat country-house of 
his own, in the village where my father’s estate lay at 
Shandy, which had been left him by an old uncle, 
with a small estate of about one hundred pounds a 
year. Behind this house, and contiguous to it, was a 
kitchen-garden of about half an acre ; and at the 
bottom of the garden, and cut off from it by a tall 
yew hedge, was a bowling-green, containing just about 
as much ground as Corporal Trim wished for; — so 
that as Trim uttered the words, “A rood and a half of 
ground to do what they would with,” — this identical 
bowling-green instantly presented itself, and became 
curiously painted all at once upon the retina of my 
uncle Toby’s fancy which was the physical cause of 
making him change colour, or at least of heightening 
his blush to that immoderate degree I spoke of. 

Never did lover post down to a beloved mistress 
with more heat and expectation than my uncle Toby 
did, to enjoy this self-same thing in private;— I say 
in private ; — for it was sheltered from the house, as I 
told you, by a tall yew hedge, and was covered on the 
other three sides, from mortal sight, by rough holly 
and thickset flowering shrubs ;— so that the idea of 
not being seen did not a little contribute to the idea 
of pleasure preconceived in my uncle Toby’s mind. — 


42 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


Vain thought ! however thick it was planted out, — or 
private soever it might seem, — to think, dear uncle 
Toby, of enjoying a thing which took up a whole rood 
and a half of ground, — and not have it known ! 

How my uncle Toby and Corporal Trim managed 
this matter, — with the history of their campaigns, 
which were no way barren of events, — may make no 
uninteresting under-plot in the epitasis and working-up 
of this drama. — At present the scene must drop,— and 
change for the parlour fire-side. 




CHAPTER IV. 

DOCTOR SLOP. 

HAT can they be doing, brother? said my 
father. — I think, replied my uncle Toby, — 
taking, as I told you, his pipe from his 
mouth, and striking the ashes out of it as 
he began his sentence ; I think, replied he — it would 
not be amiss, brother, if we rung the bell. 

Pray what’s all that racket over our heads, Oba- 
diah! — quoth my father; — my brother and I can 
scarce hear ourselves speak:. 

Sir, answered Obadiah, making a bow towards his 
left shoulder,— my mistress is taken very badly.— And 
where’s Susannah running down the garden there ? — 
Sir, she is running the shortest cut into the town, 
replied Obadiah, to fetch the old midwife. — Then 
saddle a horse, quoth my father, and do you go 
directly for Dr. Slop, the man-midwife, with all our 
services, — and let him know your mistress is fallen 
into labour, — and that I desire he will return with 
you with all speed. 

It is very strange, says my father, addressing 
himself to my uncle Toby, as Obadiah shut the 
door,— as there is so expert an operator as Dr. Slop so 
near, — that my wife should persist to the very last in 
the obstinate humour of hers, in trusting the life of 
my child, who has had one misfortune already, to the 




THE STORY OF 


44 

ignorance of an old woman and not only the life of 
my child— brother, but her own life, and with it the 
lives of all the children that might, peradventure, 
have been born to me hereafter. 

Mayhap, brother, replied my uncle Toby, my sister 
does it to save the expense : — A pudding’s end, — 
replied my father, — the doctor must be paid the same 
for inaction as action,— if not better, — to keep him in 
temper. 

— Then it can be out of nothing in the whole 
world, — quoth my uncle Toby, in the simplicity of his 
heart, — but modesty. — My uncle Toby had not fully 
arrived at the period’s end, — then the world stands 
indebted to the sudden snapping of my father’s tobacco 
pipe, for one of the neatest examples of that orna- 
mental figure in oratory which rhetoricians style the 
Aposiopesis. 

Though my father was a good natural philoso- 
pher, yet he was something of a moral philosopher 
too ; for which reason, when his tobacco pipe snapped 
short in the middle, — he had nothing to do, as such, 
but to have taken hold of the two pieces, and thrown 
them gently upon the back of the fire. — He did no 
such thing he threw them with all the violence in 
the world and to give the action still more em- 
phasis, — he started up upon both his legs to do it. 

This looked something like heat ; and the manner 
of his reply to what my uncle Toby was saying proved 
it was so. 

— “ By heaven, brother Toby ! you would try the 
patience of Job ; — and I think I have the plagues of 
one already, without it. — Why ] — Where ] — Wherein ] 
— Wherefore %— Upon what account] replied my 
uncle Toby, in the utmost astonishment. — To think, 
said my father, of a man living to your age, brother, 
and knowing so little about women !— I know nothing 
at all about them, — replied my uncle Toby. — Then, 
brother Toby, replied my father, I will tell you. If a 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


45 

man was to sit clown coolly and consider within 
himself the whole of that animal called Woman — 
compare her analogically. — I never understood rightly 
the meaning of that word — quoth my uncle Toby. — 
Analogy, replied my father, is the certain relation 
and agreement which different — Here a devil of a rap 
at the door snapped my father’s definition (like his 
tobacco-pipe) in two. 

Imagine to yourself a little, squat, uncourtly figure 
of a Doctor Slop, of about four feet and a half perpen- 
dicular height, with a breadth of back, and a susqui- 
pedality of belly, which might have done honour to a 
serjeant in the Horse Guards. 

Imagine such a one, — for such, I say, were the out- 
lines of Dr. Slop’s figure, coming slowly along, foot by 
foot, waddling through the dirt upon the vertebrae of 
a little diminutive pony, of a pretty colour, — but of 
strength, — alack !— scarce able to have made an amble 
of it, under such a fardel, had the roads been in an 
ambling condition. — They were not. — Imagine to your- 
self, Obadiah mounted upon a strong monster of a 
coach-horse, pricked into a full gallop, and making 
all practicable speed the adverse way. 

Pray, sir, let me interest you a moment in this 
description. 

Had Dr. Slop beheld Obadiah a mile off, posting 
in a narrow lane directly towards him, at that mons- 
trous rate, — splashing and plunging like a devil 
through thick and thin, as he approached, would not 
such a phenomenon, with such a vortex of mud and 
water moving along with it, round its axis, — have 
been a subject of juster apprehension to Dr. Slop in 
his situation, than the worst of Whiston’s comets 1 — 
To say nothing of the Nucleus ; that is, of Obadiah 
and the coach-horse. — In my idea, the vortex alone of 
them was enough to have involved and carried, if not 
the doctor, at least the doctor’s pony, quite away with 
it. What then do you think must the terror and 


46 %EE STORY OF 

hydrophobia of Dr. Slop have been, when yon read 
(which you are just going to do) that he was advanc- 
ing thus warily along towards Shandy Hall, and had 
approached to within sixty yards of it, and within 
five yards of a sudden turn, made by an acute angle 
of the garden wall, — and in the dirtiest part of a 
dirty lane, — when Obadiah and his coach-horse turned 
the corner, rapid, furious, — pop, — full upon him ! — 
Nothing, I think, in nature, can be supposed more 
terrible than such a rencounter, — so imprompt ! so ill 
prepared to stand the shock of it as Dr. Slop was ! 

What could Dr. Slop do ! — He crossed himself 
Pugh ! — but the doctor, sir, was a Papist. — No matter ; 
he had better have kept hold of the pummel. — He 
had so ; — nay, as it happened, he had better have 
done nothing at all ; — for in crossing himself he let go 
his whip, — and in attempting to save his . whip be- 
twixt his knee and his saddle’s skirt, as it slipped, 
he lost his stirrup, — in losing which he lost his 
seat ; — and in the multitude of all these losses 
the unfortunate doctor lost his presence of mind. So 
that, without waiting for Obadiah’s onset, he left his 
pony to its destiny, tumbling off it diagonally, some- 
thing in the style and manner of a pack of wool, and 
without any other consequence from the fall, save that 
of being left (as it would have been) with the broadest 
part of him sunk about twelve inches deep in the 
mire. 

Obadiah pulled off his cap twice to Dr. Slop ; — once 
as he was falling, — and then again when he saw him 
seated — Ill-timed complaisance ; — had not the fellow 
better have stopped his horse, and got off and helped 
him ?— Sir, he did all that his situation would allow ; 
but the momentum of the coach-horse was so great, 
that Obadiah could not do it all at once ; — he rode in 
a circle three times round Dr. Slop, before he could 
fully accomplish it anyhow ; — and at the last, when 
he did stop his beast, ’twas done with such an explo- 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


47 

sion of mud, that Obadiah had better have been a 
league off. 

When Dr. Slop entered the back-parlour, where my 
father and my uncle Toby were discoursing upon the 
nature of women, — it was hard to determine whether 
Dr. Slop’s figure, or Dr. Slop’s presence, occasioned more 
surprise to them ; for, as the accident happened so 
near the house, as not to make it worth while for 
Obadiah to remount him, — Obadiah had led him in as 
he was, unwiped, unappointed, unaneled, with all 
his stains and blotches on him. He stopd like Ham- 
let’s ghost, motionless and speechless, for a full minute 
and a half, at the parlour door (Obadiah still holding 
his hand) with all the majesty of mud. His hinder 
parts, upon which he had received his fall, totally 
besmeared, — and in every other part of him, blotched 
over in such a manner with Obadiah’s explosion, that 
you would have sworn (without mental reservation) 
that every grain of it had taken effect. 

Dr. Slop’s presence, at that time, was no less prob- 
lematical than the mode of it ; though, it is certain, 
one moment’s reflection in my father might have solved 
it ; for he had apprised Dr. Slop but the week before, 
that my mother was at her full reckoning ; and as the 
doctor had heard nothing since, ’twas natural and 
very political too in him, to have taken a ride to 
Shandy Hall, as he did, merely to see how matters 
went on. 

But my father’s mind took unfortunately a wrong 
turn in the investigation ; running like the hyper- 
critic’s altogether upon the ringing of the bell and the 
rap upon the door, — measuring their distance, — and 
keeping his mind so intent upon the operation, as to 
have power to think of nothing else, — commonplace 
infirmity of the greatest mathematicians! working 
with might and main at the demonstration, and so 
wasting all their strength upon it, that they have 
none left in them to draw the corollary, to do good with. 


48 


TUF STORY OF 


The ringing of the bell, and the rap upon the door, 
struck likewise strong upon the sensorium of. my 
uncle Toby, — but it excited a very different train of 
thoughts ; — the two irreconcilable pulsations instantly 
brought Stevinus, the great engineer, along with them, 
into my uncle Toby’s mind. What business Stevinus 
had in this affair, — is the greatest problem of all : — 
It shall be solved. 

Let the reader imagine then, that Dr. Slop has told 
his tale ; — and in what words, and with what aggra- 
vations, his fancy chooses : let him suppose that 
Obadiah has told his tale also, and with such rueful 
looks of affected concern, as he thinks will best con- 
trast the two figures as they stand by each other. Let 
him imagine that my father has stepped up stairs to 
see my mother. And, to conclude this work of imagin- 
ation — let him imagine the doctor washed, — rubbed 
down, — and condoled with,— felicitated, — got into a 
pair of Obadiah’s pumps. 

Your sudden and unexpected arrival, quoth my 
uncle Toby, addressing himself to Dr. Slop (all three 
of them sitting down to the fire together, as my uncle 
Toby began to speak), — instantly brought the great 
Stevinus into my head, who, you must know, is a 
favourite author with me. — Then, added my father, 
making use of the argument ad crumenam , — I will 
lay twenty guineas to a single crown piece, that this 
same Stevinus was some engineer or other, — or has 
wrote something or other, either directly or indirectly, 
upon the science of fortification. 

He has so, — replied my uncle Toby. — I knew it, 
said my father ; — though, for the soul of me, I cannot 
see what kind of connexion there can be betwixt Dr. 
Slop’s sudden coming, and a discourse upon fortifi- 
cations ; — yet I feared it. — Talk of what we will, 
brother, — or let the occasion be never so foreign or 
unfit for the subject, — you are sure to bring it in : I 
would not, brother Toby, continued my father, — I 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


49 

declare I would not have my head so full of curtains 
and horn-works. — That, I daresay, you would not, quoth 
Dr. Slop, interrupting him, and laughing most im- 
moderately at his pun. 

Sir, quoth my uncle Toby, the curtains my brother 
Shandy mentions here, have nothing to do with bed- 
steads ; — though I know Ducange says, “ That bed- 
curtains, in all probability, have taken their name 
from them ; — as for the horn-works, — (high! ho ! sighed 
my father) — which, continued my uncle Toby, my 
brother was speaking of, they are called by the French 
engineers “ ouvrage a comes:' ’tis formed by two epaule- 
ments or demi-bastions — they are veiy pretty, and if you 
will take a walk, 111 engage to show you one well worth 
your trouble. — I own, continued my uncle Toby, when 
we crown them, — they are much stronger, but then 
they are very expensive, and take up a great deal of 
ground, so that, in my opinion, they are most of use 
to cover or defend the head of a camp ; otherwise the 
double tenaille — By the mother who bore us ! — 
brother Toby, quoth my father, not able to hold out 
any longer, — you would provoke a saint ; — here have 
you got us, I know not how, not only souse into the 
middle of the old subject again : — but so full is your 
head of these confounded works, that though my wife is 
at this moment in the pains of labour, — and you hear 
her cry out, yet nothing will serve you but to carry off 
the man-midwife. — Accoucheur, — if you please, quoth 
Dr. Slop.— With all my heart, replied my father, I 
don’t care what they call you,— but I wish the whole 
science of fortification, with all its inventors, at the 
devil:— it has been the death of thousands,— and 
it will be mine in the end. — I would not, I would not, 
brother Toby, have my brains so full of saps, mines, 
blinds, gabions, palisados, ravelins, half-moons, and 
such trumpery, to be proprietor of Namur, and of all 
the towns in Flanders with it. 

My uncle Toby was a man patient of injuries not 

4 


THE STORY OF 


50 

from want of courage, — I have told you in the fifth 
chapter of this second book, “ that he was a man of 
courage — and will add here, that where just occa- 
sions presented, or called it forth, I know no man 
under whose arm I would sooner have taken shelter ; 
nor did this arise from any insensibility or obtuseness 
of his intellectual parts ; — for he felt this insult of my 
father’s as feelingly as a man could do ; — but he was 
of a peaceful, placid nature, — no jarring element in it, 
— all was mixed up so kindly within him ; my uncle 
Toby had scarce a heart to retaliate upon a fly. 
f — Go — says he, one day at dinner, to an overgrown 
one, which had buzzed about his nose, and tormented 
him cruelly all dinner time, — and which, after infinite 
attempts, he had caught at last, as it flew by him ; — 
I’ll not hurt thee, says my uncle Toby, rising from his 
chair and going across the room, with the fly in his 
hand, — I’ll not hurt a hair of thy head : — Go, says he, 
lifting up the sash, and opening his hand as he spoke, 
to let it escape ; — go, poor devil, get thee gone ; why 
should I hurt thee 1 — This world surely is wide enough 
to hold both thee and me. 

I was but ten years old when this happened ; — but 
whether it was, that the action itself was more in 
unison with my nerves at that age of pity, which 
instantly set my whole frame into one vibration of 
most pleasurable sensation ; or how far the manner 
and expression of it might go towards it or in what 
degree, or by what secret magic, a tone of voice and 
harmony of movement, attuned by mercy, might find 
a passage to my heart, I know not ; — this I know, 
that the lesson of universal goodwill then taught and 
imprinted by my uncle Toby, has never since been 
worn out of my mind : and though I would not 
depreciate what the study of the literce humaniores , 
at the university, has done for me in that respect, or 
discredit the other helps of an expensive education 
( bestowed upon me, both at home and abroad since*— 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


Si 

yet I often think that I owe one half of my philan- 
thropy to that one accidental impression. 

My father, in this patient endurance of wrongs, 
which I mention, was very different, as the reader 
must long ago have noted ; he had a much more 
acute and quick sensibility of nature, attended with 
a little soreness of temper ; though this never trans- 
ported him to anything which looked like malignity ; 
— yet, in the little rubs and vexations of life, ’twas 
apt to show itself in drollish and witty kind of 
peevishness : — he was, however, frank and generous 
in his nature ; — at all times open to conviction ; and 
in the little ebullitions of this sub-acid humour 
towards others, but particularly towards my uncle 
Toby, whom he truly loved ; — he would feel more 
pain, ten times told (except in the affair of my aunt 
Dinah, or where an hypothesis was concerned) than 
what he ever gave. 

The characters of the two brothers, in this view of 
them, reflected light upon each other, and appeared 
with great advantage in this affair which arose about 
Stevinus. 

I need not tell the reader, if he keep a hobby- 
horse, — that a man’s hobby-horse is as tender a part 
as he has about him ; and that these unprovoked 
strokes at my uncle Toby’s could not be unfelt by 
him. — No as I said above, my uncle Toby did feel 
them, and very sensibly too ; for as soon as my 
father had done insulting his hobby-horse, — he turned 
his head, without the least emotion, from Dr. Slop, to 
whom he was addressing his discourse, and looked up 
into my father’s face, with a countenance spread over 
with so much good-nature ; — so placid ; — so frater- 
nal so inexpressibly tender towards him it pene- 
trated my father to his heart ; he rose up hastily from 
his chair, and seizing hold of both my uncle Toby’s 
hands as he spoke brother Toby, said he,— I beg 
thy pardon forgive, I pray thee, this rash humour 


THE STOUT OF 


52 

which my mother gave me. — My dear, dear brother, 
answered uncle Toby, rising up with my father’s help, 
say no more about it ; — you are heartily welcome, had 
it been ten times as much, brother. But ’tis ungene- 
rous, replied my father, to hurt any man ; — a brother 
worse ; — but to hurt a brother of such gentle manners, 
— so unprovoking, — and so unresenting : — ’tis base , — 
By heaven, ’tis cowardly. — You are heartily welcome, 
brother, quoth my uncle Toby, — had it been fifty times 
as much. — Besides, what have I to do, my dear Toby, 
cried my father, either with your amusements or your 
pleasures, unless it was in my power (which it is not) 
to increase their measure 1 

As my father spoke the last words, — he sat down ; — 
my uncle Toby exactly followed his example, only 
that, before he took his chair, he rang the bell, to 
order Corporal Trim, who was in waiting, to step 
home for Stevinus ; — my uncle Toby’s house being no 
further off than the opposite side of the way. 

Some men would have dropped the subject of 
Stevinus ; — but my uncle Toby had no resentment in 
his heart, and he went on with the subject, to show 
my father that he had none. 

Your sudden appearance, Dr. Slop, quoth my uncle, 
resuming the discourse, instantly brought Stevinus 
into my head. [My father, you may be sure, did not 
offer to lay any more wagers upon Stevinus’s head] — 
Because, continued my uncle Toby, the celebrated 
sailing chariot, which belonged to Prince Maurice, 
and was of such wonderful contrivance and velocity 
as to carry half-a-dozen people thirty German miles, 
in I don’t- know how few minutes, — was invented 
by Stevinus, that great mathematician and en- 
gineer. 

You might have spared your servant the trouble, 
quoth Dr. Slop (as the fellow is lame), of going for 
Stevinus’s account of it, because in my return from 
Leyden, through the Hague, I walked as far as Schev- 


MY UNCLE TOBY 


53 

ling, which is two long miles, on purpose to take a 
view of it. 

That’s nothing, replied my uncle Toby, to what the 
learned Peireskius did, who walked a matter of five 
hundred miles, reckoning from Paris to Schevling, 
and from Schevling to Paris back again, in order to 
see it — and nothing else. 

Some men cannot bear to be out-gone. The more 
fool Peireskius, replied Dr. Slop. But mark, ’twas out 
of no contempt of Peireskius at all — but that Peires- 
kius’s indefatigable labour, in trudging so far on foot 
out of love for the sciences, reduced the exploit of Dr. 
Slop, in that affair, to nothing. — The more fool Pei- 
reskius, said he again... Why so 1 ? — replied my father, 
taking his brother’s part, not only to make reparation 
as fast as he could for the insult he had given him, 
which still sat upon my father’s mind but partly 
that my father began really to interest himself in the 
discourse : — Why so % — said he. Why is Peireskius, or 
any man else, to be abused for an appetite for that, or 
any other morsel of sound knowledge ; for, notwith- 
standing I know nothing of the chariot in question, 
continued he, the inventor of it must have had a very 
mechanical head ; and though I cannot guess upon 
what principles of philosophy he has achieved it — yet 
certainly his machine has been constructed upon solid 
ones, be they what they will, or it could not have 
answered at the rate my brother mentions. 

It answered, replied my uncle Toby, as well, if not 
better ; for, as Peireskius elegantly expresses it, 
speaking of the velocity of its motion, Tam cities erat 
quam erat ventus ; which, unless I have forgot my 
Latin, is, that it was as swift as the wind itself. 

But pray, Dr. Slop, qqoth my father, interrupting 
my uncle (though not without begging pardon for it), 
upon what principles was this self-same chariot set a- 
going h Upon very pretty principles, to be sure, re- 
plied Dr. Slop ; — and I have often wondered, con- 


THE STORY OF 


54 

tinued lie, evading the question, why none of our 
gentry, who live upon large plains like this of ours — 
attempt nothing of this kind ; for it would be excel- 
lent good husbandry to make use of the winds, which 
cost nothing, and which eat nothing, rather than 
horses, which (the devil take ’em) both cost and eat a 
great deal. 

For that very reason, replied my father, “ Because 
they cost nothing, and because they eat nothing,” — 
the scheme is bad ; — it is the consumption of our pro- 
ducts, as well as the manufacture of them, which 
gives bread to the hungry, — circulates trade, brings in 
money, and supports the value of our lands : — and 
though I own if I was a Prince, I would generously 
recompense the scientific head which brought forth 
such contrivances ; — yet I would as peremptorily sup- 
press the use of them. 

My father here had got into his element, — and was 
going on as prosperously with his dissertation upon 
trade as my uncle Toby had before upon his of for- 
tification ; — but, to the loss of much sound knowledge, 
the destinies in the morning had decreed that no dis- 
sertation of any kind should be spun by my father 
that day ;...for, as he opened his mouth to begin the 
next sentence, 


In popped Corporal Trim with Stevinus — but it was 
too late : — all the discourse had been exhausted with- 
out him, and was running into a new channel. 

— You may take the book home again, Trim, said 
my uncle Toby, nodding to him. 

But pri’thee, Corporal, quoth my father, drolling, — 
look first into it, and see if thou can’st spy aught of a 
sailing chariot in it. 

Corporal Trim, by being in the service, had learned 
to obey — and not to remonstrate ; — so taking the 
book to a side-table, and running over the leaves : . . . 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


55 


An’ please your honour, said Trim, I can see no such 
thing ; — however, continued the Corporal, drolling a 
little in his turn, I’ll make sure work of it, an’ please 
your honour; — so taking hold of the two covers of 
the book, one in each hand, and letting the leaves fall 
down, as he bent the covers back, he gave the book a 
good sound shake. 

There is something fallen out, however, said Trim, 
an’ please your honour ; — but it is not a chariot, or 
anything like one...Pri’thee, Corporal, said my father, 
smiling, what is it then 'l — I think, answered Trim, 
stooping to take it up, — ’tis more like a sermon, — for 
it begins with a text of scripture, and the chapter and 
verse ; — and then goes on, not as a chariot, but like a 
sermon directly. 

The company smiled. 

I cannot conceive how it is possible, quoth my uncle 
Toby, for such a thing as a sermon to have got into 
my Stevinus. 

I think ’tis a sermon, replied Trim ; but if it please 
your honours, as it is a fair hand, I will read you a 
page ; — for Trim, you must know, loved to hear him- 
self read almost as well as talk. 

I have ever a strong propensity, said my father, to 
look into things which cross my way, by such strange 
fatalities as these and as we have nothing better to 
do, I should be obliged to you, brother, if Dr. Slop 
has no objection to it, to order the corporal to give us 
a page or two of it, — if he is as able to do it as he is 
willing. An’ please your honour, quoth Trim, I 
officiated two whole campaigns, in Flanders, as clerk 
to the chaplain of the regiment. — He can read it, 
quoth my uncle Toby, as well as I can. — Trim, I assure 
you, was the best scholar in my company, and should 
have had the next halberd, but for the poor fellow’s 
misfortune. Corporal Trim laid his hand upon his 
heart, and made an humble bow to his master i then 
laying down his hat upon the floor, and taking up the 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


56 

sermon in his left hand, in order to have his right at 
liberty, — he advanced, nothing doubting, into the 
middle of the room, where he could best see, and be 
best seen by his audience. 

—If you have any objection, — said my father, ad- 
dressing himself to Dr. Slop. Not in the least, 
replied Dr. Slop ; — for it does not appear on which 
side of the question it is wrote ; — it may be a com- 
position of a divine of our church, as well as yours, 
— so that we run equal risks. ’Tis wrote upon neither 
side, quoth Trim, for ’tis only upon conscience, an’ 
please your honours. 

Trim’s reason put his audience into good humour, — 
all but Dr. Slop, who turning his head about towards 
Trim, looked a little angry. 

Begin, Trim, — and read distinctly, quoth my father. 
I will, an’ please your honour, replied the corporal, 
making a bow, and bespeaking attention with a slight 
movement of his right hand. 




CHAPTER V. 
trim’s sermon. 

“ For we trust wo have a good Conscience.” — Hebeews xiii. 18. 

RUST! — Trust we have a good con- 
science !” 

[Certainly, Trim, quoth my father, inter- 
rupting him, you give that sentence a very 
improper accent ; for you curl up your nose, man, and 
read it with such a sneering tone, as if the parson was 
going to abuse the Apostle. 

He is, an’ please your honour, replied Trim. Pugh ! 
said my father, smiling. 

Sir, quoth Dr. Slop, Trim is certainly in the right ; 
for the writer (who I perceive is a Protestant) by the 
snappish manner in which he takes up the Apostle, is 
certainly going to abuse him, — if this treatment of 
him has not done it already. But from whence, re- 
plied my father, have you concluded so soon, Dr. Slop, 
that the writer is of our church 1 — for aught I can see 
yet, — he may be of any church. Because, answered 
Dr. Slop, if he was of ours, — he durst no more take 
such a license, — than a bear by his beard. If in our 
communion, sir, a man was to insult an Apostle, — or 
a saint, — he would have an old house over his head. 
Pray is the Inquisition an ancient building, answered 
my uncle Toby, or is it a modern one? — I know 




THE STORY OF 


58 

nothing of architecture, replied Dr. Slop.— An’ please 
your honours, quoth Trim, the Inquisition is the vilest 
— Prithee spare thy description, Trim, I hate the very 
name of it, said my father. — No matter for that, said 
Dr. Slop, — it has its uses ; for though I’m no great 
advocate for it, yet, in such a case as this, he would 
soon be taught better manners ; and I can tell him, 
if he went on at that rate, would be flung into the 
Inquisition for his pains. God help him then, quoth 
my uncle Toby. Amen, added Trim ; for heaven 
above knows, I have a poor brother who has been 
fourteen years a captive in it. — 

Come Trim, quoth my father, after he saw the poor 
fellow’s grief had got a little vent, — read on,— and put 
this melancholy story out of thy head : — I grieve that 
I interrupted thee ; — but prithee begin . the sermon 
again, — for if the first sentence in it is matter of 
abuse, as thou sayest, I have a great desire to know 
what kind of provocation the Apostle has given. 

[Corporal Trim wiped his face, and returned his 
handkerchief into his pocket, and making a bow as 
he did it, — he began again.] 

“ Trust ! — Trust we have a good conscience ! Surely 
if there is anything in this life which a man may 
depend upon, and to the knowledge of which he is 
capable of arriving upon the most indisputable evi- 
dence, it must be this very thing, — whether he has a 
good conscience or no. In other matters we may be 
deceived by false appearances ; but here the mind has 
all the evidence and facts within herself ; — is conscious 
of the exact share which every passion has had in 
working upon the several designs which virtue or vice 
has planned before her.” 

[The language is good, and I declare Trim reads 
very well, quoth my father.] 

“ I own, in one case, whenever a man’s conscience 
does accuse him (as it seldom errs on that side) that 
he is guilty ; and unless in melancholy and hypochon- 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


59 

driac cases, we may safely pronounce upon it, that 
there is always sufficient grounds for the accusation. 

“ But the converse of the proposition will not hold 
true ; — namely, that whenever there is guilt, the con- 
science must accuse ; and if it does not, that a man is 
therefore innocent. — This is not fact : — So that the 
common consolation which some good Christian or 
other is hourly administering to himself, — that he 
thanks God his mind does not misgive him ; and that, 
consequently, he has a good conscience, "because he 
hath a quiet one, — is fallacious ; and as current as the 
inference is, and as infallible as the rule appears at 
first sight, yet when you look nearer to it, and try the 
truth of this rule upon plain facts, — you see it liable 
to so much error from a false application ; — the princi- 
ple upon which it goes so often perverted ; — the whole 
force of it lost, and sometimes so vilely cast away, 
that it is painful to produce the common examples 
from human life which confirm the account. 

“ A man shall be vicious and utterly debauched in 
his principles ; — exceptionable in his conduct to the 
world ; shall live shameless, in the open commission 
of a sin which no reason or pretence can justify ; — a 
sin by which, contrary to all the workings of humanity, 
he shall rule for ever the deluded partner of his guilt ; 
— rob her of her best dowry ; and not only cover her 
own head with dishonour, — but involve a whole 
virtuous family in shame and sorrow for her sake. — 
Surely you will think conscience must lead such a 
man a troublesome life ; — he can have no rest night 
or day from its reproaches. 

“Alas! conscience had something else to do, all 
this time, than break in upon him ; as Elijah re- 
proached the God Baal, — this domestic god was either 
talking, or pursuing, or was in a journey, or peradven- 
ture he slept and could not be awoke. 

“ Perhaps he was gone out in company with honour 
to fight a duel ; to pay off some debt at play or 


6o 


THE STORY OF 


dirty annuity : perhaps conscience all this time was 
engaged at home, talking loud against petty larceny, 
and executing vengeance upon some such puny crimes 
as his fortune and rank in life secured him against all 
temptation of committing ; so that he lives as 
merrily ” — [If he was of our church though, quoth 
Dr. Slop, lie could not]— “ sleeps as soundly in his 
bed and at last meets death as unconcernedly ; 
perhaps much more so than a much better man. 

“ Another is sordid, unmerciful, [here Trim waved 
his right hand], a strait-hearted, selfish wretch, inca- 
pable either of private friendship or of public spirit. 
Take notice how he passes by the widow and orphan 
in their distress, and sees all the miseries incident to 
human life without a sigh or a prayer. [An’ please 
your honours, cried Trim, I think this a viler man 
than the others.] 

“ Shall not conscience rise up and sting him on such 
occasions 1 — No ; thank God, there is no occasion : 
I pay every man his own ; — I have no fornication to 
answer to my conscience ; no faithless vows or promises 
to make up ; I thank God , I am not as other men , 
adulterers , unjust , or even as this libertine , who stands 
before me. 

“ A third is crafty and designing in his nature. View 
his whole life ; ; tis nothing but a cunning contexture 
of dark arts and unequitable subterfuges, basely to 
defeat the true intent of all laws, — plain dealing, and 
the safe enjoyment of our several properties. — You 
will see such an one working out a frame of little 
designs upon the ignorance and perplexities of the 
poor and needy man ; — shall raise a fortune upon the 
inexperience of a youth, or the unsuspecting temper 
of his friend, who would have trusted him withhis life. 

“ When old age comes on, and repentance calls him 
to look back upon his black account, and state it over 
again with his conscience, — Conscience looks into the 
statutes at large; — finds no express law broken by 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 61 

what he has done ; — perceives no penalty or forfeiture 
of goods and chattels incurred ; — sees no scourge 
waving over his head, or prison opening his gates 
upon him : — What is there to affright his conscience ] 
Conscience has got safely entrenched behind the letter 
of the law ; sits there invulnerable, fortified with 
(Eases and ^icpmds so strongly on all sides ; — that it 
is not preaching can dispossess it of its hold.” 

[Here Corporal Trim and my uncle Toby exchanged 
looks with each other. — Ay, — ay, Trim ! quoth my 
uncle Toby, shaking his head, — these are but sorry 
fortifications, Trim. — Oh ! very poor work, answered 
Trim, to what your honour and I make of it. — The 
character of this last man, said Dr. Slop, interrupting 
Trim, is more detestable than all the rest. — Go on, 
Trim, quoth my father. — ’Tis a very short sermon, 
replied Trim. — I wish it was longer, quoth my uncle 

Toby, for I like it hugely. — Trim went on.] 

******* 

“ Blessed is the man, indeed, as the author of the 
book of Ecclesiasticus expresses it, who is not pricked 
with the multitude of his sins ; blessed is the man 
whose heart hath not condemned him ; whether he 
be rich, or whether he be poor, if he have a good heart 
(a heart thus guided and informed) he shall at all 
times rejoice in a cheerful countenance ; his mind 
shall tell him more than seven watchmen that sit 
above upon atower on high.” — [A tower has no strength, 
quoth my uncle Toby, unless ’tis flanked.] — “ In the 
darkest doubts it shall conduct him safer than a 
thousand casuists, and give the state he lives in a 
better security for his behaviour than all the clauses 
and restrictions put together, which law-makers are 
forced to multiply.” 

I like the reasoning, said my father, and am sorry 
that Dr. Slop has fallen asleep before the time of his 
conviction ; — for it is now clear that the parson, as I 
thought at first, never insulted St. Paul in the least 


62 


THE STORY OF 


nor lias there been, brother, the least difference be- 
tween them. — A great matter, if they had differed, 
replied my uncle Toby,— the best friends in the world 
may differ sometimes. — True,— brother Toby, quoth 
my father, shaking hands with him, — we’ll fill our pipes, 
brother, and then Trim shall go on. 

Well,— what dost thou think of it 1 said my father, 
speaking to Corporal Trim, as he reached his tobacco- 
box. 

I think, answered the Corporal, that the seven 
watchmen upon the tower, who, I suppose, are all 
sentinels there, — are more, an’ please your honour, 
than were necessary ; — and, to go on at that rate, 
would harass a regiment all to pieces, which a com- 
manding officer, who loves his men, will never do, 
if he can help it, because two sentinels, added the 
Corporal, are as good as twenty. — I have been a 
commanding officer myself in the Corps de Garde a 
hundred times, continued Trim, rising an inch higher 
in his figure, as he spoke, — and all the time I had the 
honour to serve his Majesty King William, in relieving 
the most considerable posts, I never left more than 
two in my life. — Very right, Trim, quoth my uncle 
Toby, — but you do not consider, Trim, that the 
towers, in Solomon’s days, were not such things as 
our bastions, flanked and defended by other works ; — 
this, Trim, was an invention since Solomon’s death ; 
nor had they horn-works, or ravelins before the 
curtain, in his time ; — or such a foss6 as we make 
with a cuvette in the middle of it, and with covered 
ways and counterscarps pallisadoed along it, to guard 
against a coup de main : — So that the seven men 
upon the tower were a party, I dare say, from the 
Corps de Garde, set there, not only to look out, but to 
defend it. — They could be no more, an’ please your 
honour, than a corporal’s guard. — My father smiled 
inwardly, — but not outwardly; — the subject being 
rather too serious, considering what had happened, to 


MY UNCLE TOBY . 


63 

make a jest of : So putting his pipe into his mouth, 
which he had just lighted, — he contented himself with 
ordering Trim to read on. 

“ I know the banker I deal with, or the physician I 
usually call in,” — [There is no need, cried Dr. Slop 
(waking), to cal] in any physician in this case] — “ to 
be neither of them men of much religion : I hear them 
make a jest of it every day, and treat all its sanctions 
with so much scorn as to put the matter past doubt. 
Well ; — notwithstanding this, I put my fortune into 
the hands of the one ; — and what is dearer still to me, 
I trust my life to the honest skill of the other. 

“ Now, let me examine what is my reason for this 
great confidence. Why, in the first place, I believe 
there is no probability that either of them will employ 
the power I put into their hands to my disadvan- 
tage ; — I consider that honesty serves the purposes of 
this life ; — I know their success in the world depends 
upon the fairness of their characters, — in a word, — I’m 
persuaded that they cannot hurt me without hurting 
themselves more. 

“ But put it otherwise, namely, that interest lay, for 
once, on the other side ; that a case should happen 
wherein the one, without stain to his reputation, could 
secrete my fortune, and leave me naked in the 
world ; — or that the other could send me out of it, 
and enjoy an estate, by my death, without dishonour 
to himself or his art : — In this case, what hold have I 
of either of them'? — Beligion, the. strongest of all 
motives, is out of the question ; — interest, the next 
most powerful motive in the world, is strongly against 
me What have I left to cast into the opposite scale, 
to balance this temptation 1 — Alas ! I have nothing, — 
nothing but what is lighter than a bubble : — I must 
lie at the mercy of Honour, or some such capricious 
principle — Straight security for two of the most valu- 
able blessings — my property and my life ! 

“ In how many kingdoms of the world”— [Here Trim 


THE STORY OF 


64 

kept waving his right hand, from the sermon to the 
extent of his arm, returning it backwards and for- 
wards to the conclusion of the paragraph.] 
r “ In how many kingdoms of the world has the 
crusading sword of this misguided saint-errant spared 
neither age, nor merit, nor sex, nor condition ]— and, 
as he fought under the banners of a religion which set 
him loose from justice and humanity, he showed none ; 
mercilessly trampled upon both, — heard neither the 
^cries of the unfortunate, nor pitied their distresses !” 

[I have been in many a battle, an* please your 
honour, quoth Trim, sighing, but never in so melan- 
choly an one as this : — I would not have drawn a 
trigger in it, against these poor souls, — to have been 
made a general officer. — Why, what do you under- 
stand of the affair] said Dr. Slop, looking towards 
Trim, with something more of contempt than the 
Corporal’s honest heart deserved. — What do you 
know, friend, about this battle you talk of ] — I know, 
replied Trim, that I never refused quarter in my life 
to any man who cried out for it : — but, to a woman, 
or a child, continued Trim, before I would level my 
musket at them, I would lose my life a thousand 
times. — Here’s a crown for thee, Trim, to drink with 
Obadiah to-night, quoth my uncle Toby, and I’ll give 
Obadiah another, too. — God bless your Honour, re- 
plied Trim ; I had rather these poor women and 
children had it.— Thou art an honest fellow, quoth my 
uncle Toby. — My father nodded his head, — as much 
as to say — And so he is. 

But pri’thee, Trim, said my father, make an end, — 
for I see thou hast but a leaf or two left. 

Corporal Trim read on.] 

“ I will add no farther to the length of this sermon, 
than by two or three short and independent rules 
deducible from it. 

“ First, whenever a man talks loudly against reli- 
gion, always suspect that it is not his reason, but his 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


passions which have got the better of his creed. A 
bad life and a good belief are disagreeable and trouble- 
some neighbours, and where they separate, depend 
upon it, ’tis for no other cause than for quietness’ sake. 

“ Secondly, When a man, thus represented, tells you 
in any particular instance, — that such a thing goes 
against his conscience, — always believe he means 
exactly the same thing as when he tells you such a 
thing goes against his stomach ; — a present want of 
appetite being generally the true cause of both. 

“ In a word, — trust that man in nothing who has not ^ 
a conscience in everything. 

“ And, in your own case, remember this plain dis- 
tinction, a mistake in which has ruined thousands, — 
that your conscience is not a law : — No, God and 
reason made the law, and have placed conscience 
within you to determine ; — not, like an Asiatic cadi, 
according to the ebbs and flows of his own passions, 
but like a British judge in this land of liberty and 
good sense, who makes no new law, but faithfully 
declares that law which he knows already written.” 

FINIS. 

Thou hast read the sermon extremely well, Trim, 
quoth my father. — If he had spared his comments, 
replied Dr. Slop, he would have read it much better. — 

I should have read it ten times better, sir, answered 
Trim, but that my heart was so full. — That was the 
very reason, Trim, replied my father, which has made 
thee read the sermon as well as thou hast done ; and 
if the clergy of our church, continued my father, 
addressing himself to Dr. Slop, would take part in 
what they deliver, as deeply as this poor fellow has 
done,— as their compositions are fine;— [I deny it, 
quoth Dr. Slop]— I maintain it ;— that the eloquence 
of our pulpits, with such subjects to inflame it, would 
be a model for the whole world But, alas ! continued 
my father, and I own it, sir, with sorrow, that, like 

5 


66 


MY TJNCLT2 TOBY. 


French politicians in this respect, what they gain in 
the cabinet they lose in the field. I know the author, 
for ’tis wrote, certainly, by the parson of the parish. 
The similitude of the style and manner of it with 
those my father had constantly heard preached in his 
parish-church was the ground of his conjecture, — 
proving it, as strongly as an argument a priori could 
prove such a thing to a philosophic mind, that it was 
Yorick’s, and no one’s else. — It was proved to be so 
cl posteriori, the day after, when Yorick sent a servant 
to my uncle Toby’s house to inquire after it. 

It seems that Yorick, who was inquisitive about all 
kinds of knowledge, had borrowed Stevinus of my 
uncle Toby, and had carelessly popped his sermon, as 
soon as he had made it, into the middle of Stevinus ; 
and by an act of forgetfulness, to which he was ever 
subject, he had sent Stevinus home, and his sermon to 
keep him company. 




CHAPTER VI. 

I COME INTO THE WOBLD. 

EgonT is now proper I think, quoth Dr. Slop 
rag (clearing up his looks), as we are in a con- 

m dition to be of some service to Mrs. 

Shandy, to send upstairs to know how she 

goes on. 

I have ordered, answered my father, the old mid- 
wife to come down to us upon the least difficulty ; — 
for you must know, Dr. Slop, continued my father, 
with a perplexed kind of a smile upon his countenance, 
that by express treaty, solemnly ratified between me 
and my wife, you are no more than an auxiliary in 
this affair, — and not so much as that, — unless the 
lean old mother of a midwife above stairs cannot do 
without you. Women have their particular fancies, 
and in points of this nature, continued my father, 
where they bear the whole burden, and suffer so much 
acute pain for the advantage of our families, and the 
good of the species, — they claim the right of deciding, 
en souveraines , in whose hands, and in what fashion, 
they choose to undergo it. 

They are in the right of it, — quoth my uncle Toby. 
But, sir, replied Dr. Slop, not taking notice of my 
uncle Toby’s opinion, but turning to my father, — 
they had better govern in other points ; — and a father 
of a family, who wished its perpetuity, in my opi- 

5-2 


68 


THE STOUT OF 


nion, had better exchange this prerogative with them, 
and give np some other rights in lieu of it. I know 
not, quoth my father, answering a little too testily, to 
be quite dispassionate in what he said, — I know not, 
quoth he, what we have left to give up. One would 
almost give up anything, replied Dr. Slop. I beg your 
pardon, answered my uncle Toby. — Sir, replied Dr. 
Slop, it would astonish you to know what improve- 
ments we have made of late years in all branches of 
obstetrical knowledge, — which has received such lights 
that, for my part (holding up his hands), I declare I 
wonder how the world has. . . . 

I wish, Dr. Slop, quoth my uncle Toby, you had 
seen what prodigious armies we had in Flanders. 

My unde Toby’s wish did Dr. Slop a disservice, 
■which his heart never intended any man.— Sir, it 
confounded him — and thereby putting his ideas first 
into confusion, and then to flight, he could not rally 
them again for the soul of him. 

In all disputes, — male or female, — whether for 
honour, for profit, or for love, — it makes no difference 
in the case ; — nothing is more dangerous, Madam, 
than a wish coming sideways in this unexpected 
manner upon a man : the safest way, in general, to 
take off the force of the wish is for the party wished 
at instantly to. get upon his legs, — and wish the 
wisher something in return, of pretty near the 
same value ; — so, balancing the account upon the 
spot, you stand as you were, — nay, sometimes gain 
the advantage of the attack by it. 

Bless my soul ! — my poor mistress is ready to faint 
— and her pains are gone — and the drops are done — 
and the bottle of julap is broke — and the nurse has 
cut her arm — and, continued Susannah, — the midwife 
has fallen backwards upon the edge of the fender, 
and bruised her hip as black as your hat ; — but the 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


69 

midwife would gladly first give you an account how 
things are ; so desires you would go upstairs and speak 
to her this moment. 

Human nature is the same in all professions. 

The midwife had just before been put over Dr. 
Slop’s head ; — he had not digested it. — No, replied 
Dr. Slop, ’twould be full as proper if the midwife came 
down to me. — I like subordination, quoth my uncle 
Toby, — and but for it, after the reduction of Lisle, I 
know not what might have become of the garrison of 
Ghent, in the mutiny for bread, in the year Ten. 

It is two hours and ten minutes — and no more — 
cried my father, looking at his watch — since Dr. Slop 
and Obadiah arrived, and I know not how it happens, 
brother Toby— but to my imagination it seems almost 
an age. 

Though my father said, “he knew not how it 
happened/’ — yet he knew very well how it happened ; 
— and at the instant he spoke it was predetermined in 
his mind to give my uncle Toby a clear account of 
the matter by a metaphysical dissertation upon the 
subject of duration and its simple modes, in order to 
show my uncle Toby by what mechanism and mensu- 
rations in the brain it came to pass, that the rapid 
succession of their ideas, and the eternal scampering 
of the discourse from one thing to another, since Dr. 
Slop had come into the room, had lengthened out so 
short a period to so inconceivable an extent. — I know 
not how it happens — cried my father — but it seems an 
age. 

’Tis owing entirely, quoth my uncle Toby, to the 
succession of our ideas. 

My father, who had an itch in common with all 
philosophers of reasoning upon everything . which 
happened, and accounting for it too — proposed infinite 
pleasure to himself in this, of the succession of ideas, 
and had not the least apprehension of having it 
snatched out of his hands by my uncle Toby, who 


70 


THE STORY OF 


(honest man !) generally took everything as it 
happened ; — and who, of all things in the world, 
troubled his brain the least with abstruse thinking ; 
— the ideas of time and space — or how we came by 
those ideas — or of what stuff they were made — or 
. whether they were born with us — or we picked them 
up afterwards as we went along— or whether we did 
it in frocks — or not till we had got into breeches — with 
a thousand other inquiries and disputes about infinity, 
prescience, liberty, necessity, and so forth, upon whose 
desperate and unconquerable theories so many fine 
heads have been turned and cracked — never did my 
uncle Toby’s the least injury at all ; my father knew it 
— and was no less surprised, than he was disappointed, 
with my uncle’s fortuitous solution. 

Do you understand the theory of that affair? re- 
plied my father. 

Not I, quoth my uncle. 

But you have some ideas, said my father, of what 
you talk about ? 

No more than my horse, replied my uncle Toby. 

Gracious heaven ! cried my father, looking upwards, 
and clasping his two hands together— there is a worth 
in thy honest ignorance, brother Toby — ’twere almost 
a pity to exchange it for a knowledge. — But I’LL tell 
thee. — 

To understand what time is aright, without which 
we never can comprehend infinity, insomuch as one is 
a portion of the other — we ought seriously to sit down 
and consider what idea it is we have of duration, so 
as to give a satisfactory account how we came by it. — 
What is that to anybody? quoth my uncle Toby. 

Now,, whether we observe it or no, continued my 
father, in every sound man’s head, there is a regular 
succession of ideas of one sort or other, which follow 
each other in train just like— A train of artillery? 
said my uncle Toby— A train of a fiddlestick !— quoth 
my father— which follow and succeed one another in 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


7i 


our minds at certain distances, just like the images in 
the inside of a lanthorn turned round by the heat of 
a candle. — I declare, quoth my uncle Toby, mine are 
more like a smoke-jack. — Then, brother Toby, I have 
nothing more to say to you upon that subject, said 
my father. 

What a conjuncture was here lost ! — My father in 
one of his best explanatory moves — in eager pursuit 
of a metaphysic point into the very regions where 
clouds and thick darkness would soon have encom- 
passed it about ; — my uncle Toby in one of the finest 
dispositions for it in the world ; — his head like a 
smoke-jack ; — the funnel unswept, and the ideas 
whirling round and round about in it, all obfuscated 
and darkened over with fuliginous matter ! 

Though my father persisted in not going on with the 
discourse — yet he could not get my uncle Toby’s 
smoke-jack out of his head — piqued as he was at first 
with it : — there was something in the comparison at 
the bottom, which hit his fancy ; for which purpose, 
resting his elbow upon the table, and reclining the 
right side of his head upon the palm of his hand — 
but looking first steadfastly in the fire— he began to 
commune with himself and philosophize about it : 
but his spirits being wore out with the fatigues of 
investigating new tracts, and the constant exertion of 
his faculties upon that variety of subjects which had 
taken their turn in the discourse — the idea of the 
smoke-jack soon turned all his ideas upside down — so 
that he fell asleep almost before he knew what he was 
about. 

As for my uncle. Toby, his smoke-jack had not 
made a dozen revolutions, before he fell asleep also. — 
Peace be with them both !— Dr. Slop is engaged with 
the midwife and my mother above-stairs.— Trim is 
busy in turning an old pair of jack-boots into a couple 
of mortars to be employed in the siege of Messina 


THE STORY OF 


72 

next summer— and is this instant boring the touch- 
holes with the point of a hot poker. 

—Every day for at least ten years together did my 
father resolve to have it mended — ’tis not mended 
yet ; — no family but ours would have borne with it an 
hour— and what is most astonishing, there was not a 
subject in the world upon which my father was so 
eloquent, as upon that of door-hinges. — And yet at 
the same time, he was certainly one of the greatest 
bubbles to them, I think, that history can produce : 
his rhetoric and conduct were at perpetual handicuffs. 
—Never did the parlour door open— but his philo- 
sophy or his principles fell a victim to it three drops 
of oil with a feather, and a smart stroke of a hammer, 
had saved his honour for ever. 

When corporal Trim had brought his two mortars 
to bear, he was delighted with his handiwork above 
measure ; and knowing what a pleasure it would be 
to his master to see them, he was not able to resist 
the desire he had of carrying them directly into his 
parlour. 

Had the parlour door opened and turned upon its 
hinges, as a door should do, in this case, I say, there 
had been no danger either to master or man, in cor- 
poral Trim’s peeping in : the moment he had beheld 
my father and my uncle Toby fast asleep — the respect- 
fulness of his carriage was such, he would have retired 
as silent as death, and left them both in their arm- 
chairs, dreaming as happy as he had found them : 
but the thing was, morally speaking, so very imprac- 
ticable, that for the many years in which this hinge 
was suffered to be out of order, and amongst the 
hourly grievances my father submitted to upon its 
account— this was one ; that he never folded his arms 
to take his nap after dinner, but the thought of being 
unavoidably awakened by the first person who should 
open the door, was always uppermost in his ima- 
gination, and so incessantly stepped in betwixt 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


73 

him and the first balmy presage of his repose, as to 
rob him, as he often declared, of the whole sweets 
of it. 

Pray what’s the matter % Who is there 1 cried my 
father, waking, the moment the door began to creak. — 

I wish the smith would give a peep at that confounded 
hinge. — ’Tis nothing, an’ please your honour, said 
Trim, but two mortars I am bringing in. — They shan’t 
make a clatter with them here, cried my father 
hastily. — If Dr. Slop has any drugs to pound, let him 
do it in the kitchen.— May it please your honour, 
cried Trim, they are two mortar-pieces for a siege 
next summer, which I have been making out of a pair 
of jack-boots, which Obadiah told me your honour 
had left off wearing. — By heaven ! cried my father, 
springing _ out of his chair, as he swore — I have not 
one appointment belonging to me, which I set so 
much store by, as I do by these jack-boots — they were 
our great grandfather’s, brother Toby — they were 
hereditary. Then I fear, quoth my uncle Toby, Trim \ 
has cut off the entail. — I have only cut off the tops, ) 
an’ please your honour, cried Trim. — I hate perpe- 
tuities as much as any man alive, cried my father — ■ 
but these jack-boots, continued he (smiling, though 
very angry at the same time) have been in the family, 
brother, ever since the Civil Wars ; — Sir Boger Shandy 
wore them at the battle of Marston Moor. — I declare 
I would not have taken ten pounds for them. — I’ll 
pay you the money, brother Shandy, quoth my uncle 
Toby, looking at the two mortars with infinite plea- 
sure, and putting his hand into his breeches pocket as 
he viewed them — I’ll pay you the ten pounds this 
moment with all my heart and soul. 

Brother Toby, replied my father, altering his tone, 
you care not what money you dissipate and throw 
away, provided, continued he, ’tis but upon a siege. — 
Have I not one hundred and twenty pounds a year, 
besides my half-pay 1 cried my uncle Toby. — What is 


THE STOEY OF 


74 

that— replied my father, hastily— to ten pounds for a 
pair of jack-boots 1 — twelve guineas for your pontoons 
— half as much for your Dutch drawbridge 1 — to say 
nothing of the train of little brass artillery you be- 
spoke last week, with twenty other preparations for 
the siege of Messina : believe me, dear brother Toby, 
continued my father, taking him kindly by the hand 
—these military operations of yours are above your 
strength ; — you mean well, brother — but they carry you 
into greater expenses than you were first aware of ; — 
and take my word, dear Toby, they will in the end 
quite ruin your fortune, and make a beggar of you. 
— What signifies if they do, brother, replied my uncle 
Toby, so long as we know ’tis for the good of the 
nation h — 

My father could not help smiling for his soul — his 
anger at the worst was never more than a spark ; — 
and the zeal and simplicity of Trim — and the gene- 
rous (though hobby-horsical) gallantry of my uncle 
Toby, brought him into perfect good humour with 
them in an instant. 

Generous souls ! — God prosper you both, and your 
mortar-pieces, quoth my father to himself ! 

All is quiet and hush, cried my father, at least 
above-stairs — I hear not one foot stirring. — Prithee, 
Trim, who’s in the kitchen % There is no one soul in 
the kitchen, answered Trim, making a low bow as he 
spoke, except Dr. Slop — Confusion ! cried my father 
(getting up upon his legs a second time) — not one 
single thing has gone right this day ! had I faith in 
astrology, brother (which by the by my father had), I 
would have sworn some retrograde planet was hang- 
ing over this unfortunate house of mine, and turning 
every individual thing in it out of its place. — Why, I 
thought Dr. Slop had been above-stairs, and so said 
you. — What can the fellow be puzzling about in the 
kitchen % — He is busy, an’ please your honour, replied 
Trim, in making a bridge. — ’Tis very obliging in him, 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


7 5 

quoth my uncle Toby ; — pray give my humble service 
to Dr. Slop, Trim, and tell him I thank him heartily. 

You must know my uncle Toby mistook the bridge 
as widely as my father mistook the mortars. 

When Trim came in and told my father that Dr. 
Slop was in the kitchen, and busy in making a bridge 
—my uncle Toby — the affair of- the jack-boots having 
just then raised a train of military ideas in his brain — 
took it instantly for granted that Dr. Slop was making 
a model of the marquis d’Hopital’s bridge. — ’Tis very 
obliging in him, quoth my uncle Toby ; — pray, give 
my humble service to Dr. Slop, Trim, and tell him I 
thank him heartily. 

This unfortunate drawbridge of yours, quoth my 
.father — God bless your honour, cried Trim, ’tis a 
bridge for young master’s nose. — He has crushed his 
nose, Susannah says, as flat as a pancake to his face, 
and he is making a false bridge with a piece of cotton 
and a thin piece of whalebone out of Susannah’s stays, 
to raise it up. — Lead me to my room, brother Toby, 
cried my father, this instant ! 

Did ever man, brother Toby, cried my father, rais- 
ing himself round to his elbow, and turning himself 
round to the opposite side of the bed where my uncle 
Toby was sitting in his old fringed chair, with his 
chin resting upon his crutch — did ever a poor unfor- 
tunate man, brother Toby, cried my father, receive so 
many lashes 1 — The most I ever saw given, quoth my 
uncle Toby, (ringing the bell at the bed’s head for 
Trim) was to a grenadier, I think in Makay’s regi- 
ment. 

Was it Makay’s regiment, quoth my uncle Toby, 
where the poor grenadier was so unmercifully whipped 
at Bruges about the ducats 'l — 0 Christ ! he was inno- 
cent ! cried Trim, with a deep sigh. — And he was 
whipped, may it please your honour, almost to death’s 
door. — They had better have shot him outright, as he 
begged, and he had gone directly to heaven, for he 


THE STORY OF 


76 

was as innocent as your honour. — I thank thee, Trim, 
quoth my uncle Toby. — I never think of his, con- 
tinued Trim, and my poor brother Tom’s misfortunes, 
for we were all three schoolfellows, but I cry like a 
coward. — Tears are no proof of cowardice, Trim. I 
drop them ofttimes myself, cried my uncle Toby. — I 
know your honour does, replied Trim, and so am not 
ashamed of it myself. — But to think, may it please 
your honour, continued Trim, a tear stealing into a 
corner of his eye as he spoke — to think of two virtuous 
lads with hearts as warm in their bodies, and as honest 
as God could make them — the children of honest 
people, going forth with gallant spirits to seek their 
fortunes in the world — and fall into such evils I — poor 
Tom ! to be tortured upon a rack for nothing — but 
marrying a Jew’s widow who sold sausages— honest 
Dick Johnson’s soul to be scourged out of his body, 
for the ducats another man put into his knapsack !— 
O ! — these are misfortunes, cried Trim, pulling out his 
handkerchief — these are misfortunes, may it please 
your honour, worth lying down and crying over. 

— My father could not help blushing. 

/ — ’Twould be a pity, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, 

thou shouldst ever feel sorrow of thy own — thou feel- 
\ est it so tenderly for. others. — Alack-o-day, replied 
the corporal, brightening up his face — your honour 
knows I have neither wife nor child — I can have no 
* sorrows in this world. — My father could not help 
smiling. — As few as any man, Trim, replied my uncle 
Toby ; nor can I see how a fellow of thy light heart 
can suffer, but from the distress of poverty in thy old 
age — when thou art past all services, Trim — and hast 
outlived thy friends. — An’ please your honour, never 
fear, replied Trim, cheerily. — But I would have thee 
never fear, Trim, replied my uncle ; and therefore, 
continued my uncle Toby, throwing down his crutch, 
and getting up upon his legs as he uttered the word 
therefore — in recompense, Trim, of thy long fidelity to 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


77 


me, and that goodness of thy heart I have had such 
proofs of — whilst thy master is worth a shilling — thou 
shalt never ask elsewhere, Trim, for a penny. Trim 
attempted to thank my uncle Toby — but had not power 
— tears trickled down his cheeks faster than he could 
wipe them off — He laid his hands upon his breast — 
made a bow to the ground, and shut the door. 

— I have left Trim my bowling green, cried my 
uncle Toby — My father smiled — I have left him more- 
over a pension, continued my uncle Toby — My father 
looked grave. 

Is this a fit time, said my father to himself, to talk 
of pensions and grenadiers 1 

When I reflect, brother Toby, upon man ; and take 
a view of that dark side of him which represents his 
life as open to so many causes of trouble — when I 
consider, brother Toby, how oft we eat the bread of 
affliction, and that we are born to it, as to the portion 
of our inheritance — I was born to nothing, quoth my 
uncle Toby, interrupting my father — but my commis- 
sion. — Zooks ! said my father, did not my uncle leave 
you a hundred and twenty pounds a year? — What 
could I have done without it 1 replied my uncle Toby. 
— That’s another concern, said my father, testily — 
But I say, Toby, when one runs over the catalogue of 
all the cross reckonings and sorrowful items with 
which the heart of man is overcharged, ’tis wonderful 
by what hidden resources the mind is enabled to stand 
out and bear itself up, as it does against the imposi- 
tions laid upon our nature. — Tis by the assistance of 
Almighty God, cried my uncle Toby, looking up, and 
pressing the palms of his hands close together — ’tis 
not from our own strength, brother Shandy — a senti- 
nel in a wooden sentry-box might as well pretend to 
stand it out against a detachment _ of fifty men, — we 
are upheld by the grace and the assistance of the best 
of beings. 

— That is cutting the knot, said my father, instead 


MY TJNCLB TOBY. 


78 

of untying it. — But give me leave to lead you, brother 
Toby, a little deeper into the mystery. 

With all my heart, replied my uncle Toby. — Though 
man is of all others the most curious vehicle, said my 
father, yet at the same time ’tis of so slight a frame, 
and so totteringly put together, that the sudden jerks 
and hard jostlings it unavoidably meets with in this 
rugged journey, would overset and tear it to pieces a 
dozen times a day — was it not, brother Toby, that 
there is a secret spring within us — Which spring, said 
my uncle Toby, I take to be religion. — Will that set 
my child’s nose on 1 ? cried my father, letting go his 
finger, and striking one hand against the other. — It 
makes everything straight for us, answered my uncle 
Toby. — Figuratively speaking, dear Toby, it may, for 
aught I know, said my father ; but the spring I am 
speaking of, is that great and elastic power within us 
of counterbalancing evil, which like a secret spring in 
a well-ordered machine, though it can’t prevent the 
shock — at least it imposes upon our sense of it. 

Now, my dear brother, said my father, replacing his 
forefinger, as he was coming closer to the point — had 
my child arrived safe into the world, unmartyred in 
that precious part of him — fanciful and extravagant 
as I may appear to the world in my opinion of 
Christian names, and of that magic bias which good 
or bad names irresistibly impress upon our characters 
and conducts — heaven is witness ; that in the warmest 
transports of my wishes for the prosperity of my child, 
I never once wished to crown his head with more 
glory and honour than what George or Edward would 
have spread around it. 

But alas ! continued my father, as the greatest evil 
has befallen him — I must counteract and undo it with 
the greatest good. 

He shall be christened Trismegistus, brother. 

I wish it may answer, replied my uncle Toby, 
rising up. 



CHAPTEE VII. 

THE CHRISTENING. 



E shall bring all things to rights, said my 
father, setting his foot upon the first step 
from the landing — this Trismegistus, con- 
tinued my father, drawing his leg back, and 
turning to my uncle Toby — was the greatest (Toby) of 
all earthly beings — he was the greatest king — the 
greatest lawgiver, the greatest philosopher — and the 
greatest priest — and engineer — said my uncle Toby. 

— In course, said my father. 

— And how does your mistress 1 cried my father, 
taking the same step over again from the landing, and 
calling to Susannah, whom he saw passing by the foot 
of the stairs with a huge pincushion in her hand — 
how does your mistress'? As well, said Susannah, 
tripping by, but without looking up, as can be ex- 
pected. — What a fool am I, said my father, drawing 
his leg back again- -let things be as they will, brother 
Toby, ’tis ever the precise answer. — And how is the 
child, pray ?— No answer. And where is doctor Slop % 
added my father, raising his voice aloud, and looking 
over the balusters— Susannah was out of hearing. 

Of all the riddles of a married life, said my father, 
crossing the landing, in order to set his back against 
the wall, whilst he propounded it to my uncle Toby- 
of all the puzzling riddles, said he, in a marriage 


8o 


THE STORY OF 


state, — of which you may trust me, brother Toby, 
there are more asses’ loads than all Job’s stock of 
asses could have carried — there is not one that has 
more intricacies in it than this — that from the very 
moment the mistress of the house is brought to bed, 
every female in it, from my lady’s gentlewoman down 
to the cinder-wench, becomes an inch taller for it; 
and give themselves more airs upon that single inch, 
than all their other inches put together. 

I think rather, replied my uncle Toby, that ’tis we 
who sink an inch lower. — If I meet but a woman with 
child — I do it — ’Tis a heavy tax upon that half of our 
fellow creatures, brother Shandy, said my uncle Toby 
— ’Tis a piteous burden upon them, continued he, 
shaking his head. — Yes, yes, ’tis a painful thing — said 
my father, shaking his head too — but certainly since 
shaking of heads came into fashion, never did two 
heads shake together in concert, from two such dif- 
ferent springs. 

God bless 7 ’em all— said my uncle Toby and my 

Duce take ) father, each to himself. 

— So then, friend, you have got my father and my 
uncle Toby off the stairs, and seen them to bed? — 
And how did you manage it? — You dropped a curtain 
at the stair-foot. — I thought you had no other way for it. 

’Tis even high time, for except a short nap, which 
they soon got whilst Trim was boring the jack boots— 
and which, by the bye, did my father no sort of good 
upon the score of the bad hinge — they have not else 
shut their eyes, since nine hours before. 

Then reach me my breeches off the chair, said my 
father to Susannah. There is not a moment’s time to 
dress you, sir, cried Susannah — the child is black in 
the face. — Bless me, sir, said Susannah, the child’s in 
a fit. — And where’s Mr. Yorick? — Never where he 
should be, said Susannah, but his curate’s in the 
dressing-room, with the child upon his arm, waiting 
for the name— and my mistress bid me run as fast as 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


81 


I could to know, as captain Shandy is the godfather, 
whether it should not be called after him. 

Were one sure, said my father to himself, scratching 
his eyebrow, that the child was expiring, one might 
as well compliment my brother Toby as not — and 
’twould be a pity, in such a case, to throw away so 
great a name as Trismegistus upon him. — But he may 
recover. 

No, no, — said my father to Susannah : I’ll get up. — 
There is no time, cried Susannah, the child’s as black 
as my shoe. — Trismegistus, said my father — but stay 
— thou art a leaky vessel, Susannah, added my father ; 
canst thou carry Trismegistus in thy head, the length 
of the gallery without scattering i — Can I h cried 
Susannah, shutting the door in a huff. — If she can, 
I’ll be shot, said my father, bouncing out of bed in 
the dark, and groping for his breeches. 

Susannah ran with all speed along the gallery. 

My father made all possible speed to find his 
breeches. 

Susannah got the start, and kept it. — ’Tis Tris — 
something, cried Susannah. — There is no Christian 
name in the world, said the curate, beginning with 
Tris — but Tristram. Then ’tis Tristram -gistus, quoth 
Susannah. 

There is no gistus to it, noodle ! — ’tis my own name, 
replied the curate, dipping his hand as he spoke into 
the bason — Tristram ! said he, &c. &c. &c. &c., so 
Tristram was I called, and Tristram shall I be to the 
day of my death. 

My father followed Susannah with his nightgown 
across his arm, with nothing more than his breeches 
on, fastened through haste with but a single button, 
and that button through haste thrust only half into 
the button-hole. 

She has not forgot the name, cried my father, half 
opening the door. — No, no, said the curate, with a 
tone of intelligence. — And the child is better, cried 

6 


82 


THE STORY OF 


Susannah. — And how does your mistress ?— As well, 
said Susannah, as can be expected. — Pish ! said my 
father, the button of his breeches slipping out of the 
button-hole — So that whether the interjection was 
levelled at Susannah, or at the button- hole — whether 
pish was an interjection of contempt, or an interjection 
of modesty, was a doubt. All the light I am able to give 
the reader at present is this, that the moment my father 
cried pish ! he whisked himself about — and with his 
breeches held up by one hand, and his night-gown 
thrown across the arm of the other, he returned along 
the gallery to bed, something slower than he came. 

* Sfc * * 

If my wife will but venture him — brother Toby, 
Trismegistus shall be dressed and brought down to 
us, whilst you and I are getting our breakfast to- 
gether. 

Go, tell Susannah, Obadiah, to step here. 

She has run upstairs, answered Obadiah, this very 
instant, sobbing and crying, and wringing her hands 
as if her heart would break. 

We shall have a rare month of it, said my father, 
turning his head from Obadiah, and looking wistfully 
in my uncle Toby’s face for some time — we shall 
have a devilish month of it, brother Toby, said my 
father, setting his arms a-kimbo, and shaking his head ; 
fire, water, women — brother Toby ! — ’tis some mis- 
fortune, quoth my uncle Toby. — That it is, cried my 
father — to have so many jarring elements breaking 
loose, and riding triumph in every corner of a gentle- 
man’s house — little boots it to the peace of a family, 
brother Toby, that you and I possess ourselves, and 
sit here silent and unmoved — whilst such a storm is 
whistling over our heads. 

And. what’s the matter, Susannah ? they have called 
the child Tristram — and my mistress is just got out of 
an hysteric fit about it— no ! — ’tis not my fault, said 
Susannah — I told him it was Tristram-gistus. 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


83 

Make tea for yourself, brother Toby, said my father, 
taking down, his hat — but how different from the 
sallies and agitations of voice and members which a 
common reader would imagine ! 

For he spake in the sweetest modulation — and took 
down his hat with the gentlest movement of limbs, 
that ever affliction harmonized and attuned together. 

Go to the bowling green for corporal Trim, said my 
uncle Toby, speaking to Obadiah, as soon as my father 
left the room. 

Now, my father could not lie down with this afflic- 
tion for his life — nor could he carry it upstairs like 
the other — He walked composedly out with it to the 
fish-pond. 

Had my father leaned his head upon his hand, and 
reasoned an hour which way to have gone — reason, 
with all her force, could not have directed him to any- 
thing like it : there is something, sir, in fish-ponds — 
but what it is, I leave to system-builders and fish- 
pond diggers betwixt ’em to find out — but there is 
something, under the first disorderly transport of the 
humours, so unaccountably becalming in an orderly 
and a sober walk towards one of them, that I have 
often wondered that neither Pythagoras, nor Plato, 
nor Solon, nor Lycurgus, nor Mahomet, nor any one 
of your noted lawgivers, ever gave order about them. 

Your honour, said Trim, shutting the parlour door 
before he began to speak, has heard, I imagine, of this 
unlucky accident. — O yes, Trim ! said my uncle Toby, 
and it gives me great concern. — I am heartily con- 
cerned too, but I hope your honour, replied Trim, will 
do me the justice to believe, that it was not in the 
least owing to me. — To thee— Trim 1 — cried my uncle 
Toby, looking kindly in .his face— ’twas Susannah’s 
and the curate’s folly betwixt them. — What business 
could they have, an’ please your honour, in the gar- 
den %— In the gallery, thou meanest, replied my uncle 
Toby. 


6—2 


THE STORY OF 


84 

Trim found he was upon a wrong scent, and stopped 
short with a low bow — Two misfortunes, quoth the 
corporal to himself, are twice as many at least as are 
needful to be talked over at one time ; — the mischief 
the cow has done in breaking into the fortifications, 
may be told his honour hereafter — Trim’s casuistry 
and address, under the cover of his low bow, prevented 
all suspicion in my uncle Toby, so he went on with 
what he had to say to Trim as follows : 

For my own part, Trim, though I can see little or 
no difference betwixt my nephew’s being called Tris- 
tram or Trismegistus — yet as the thing sits so near 
my brother’s heart, Trim — I would freely have given 
a hundred pounds rather than it should have hap- 
pened. — A hundred pounds, an’ please your honour, 
replied Trim, — I would not give a cherrystone to 
boot. — Nor would I, Trim, upon my own account, 
quoth my uncle Toby — but my brother, whom there 
is no arguing with in this case — maintains that a great 
deal more depends, Trim, upon Christian names, than 
what ignorant people imagine; — for he says there 
never was a great or heroic action performed since the 
world began by one called Tristram — nay he will have 
it, Trim, that a man can neither be learned, nor wise, 
nor brave. — ’Tis all fancy, an’ please your honour — I 
fought just as well, replied the corporal, when the 
regiment called me Trim, as when they called me 
J ames Butler. — And for my own part, said my uncle 
Toby, though I should blush to boast of myself, Trim, 
— yet had my name been Alexander, I could have 
done no more at Namur than my duty. — Bless your 
honour ! cried Trim, advancing three steps as he spoke, 
does a man think of his Christian name when he goes 
upon the attack ?— Or when he stands in the trench, 
Trim 1 cried my uncle Toby, looking firm. — Or when 
he enters a breach 1 said Trim, pushing in between 
two chairs. — Or forces the lines? cried my uncle, 
rising up, and pushing his crutch like a pike.— Or 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


85 

facing a platoon % cried Trim, presenting his stick like 
a firelock. — Or when he marches up the glacis % cried 
my uncle Toby, looking warm and setting his foot upon 
his stool. 

My father was returned from his walk to the fish- 
pond — and opened the parlour door in the very height 
of the attack, just as my uncle Toby was marching up 
the glacis — Trim recovered his arms — never was my 
uncle Toby caught riding at such a desperate rate in his 
life ! Alas ! my uncle Toby ! had not a weightier matter 
called forth all the ready eloquence of my father- 
how hadst thou then and thy poor hobby-horse too 
have been insulted ! 

My father hung up his hat with the same air he 
took it down ; and after giving a slight look at the 
disorder of the room, he took hold of one of the 
chairs which had formed the corporal’s breach, and 
placing it over against my uncle Toby, he sat down in 
it, and as soon as the tea things were taken away, and 
the door shut, he broke out in a lamentation as 
follows : 


My Father’s Lamentation. 

It is in vain longer, said my father, — it is in vain 
longer, said my father, in the most querulous mono- 
tone imaginable, to struggle as I have done against 
this most uncomfortable of human persuasions — I see 
it plainly, that either for my own sins, brother Toby, 
or the sins and follies of the Shandy family, heaven 
has thought fit to draw forth the heaviest of its 
artillery against me ; and that the prosperity of. my 
child is the point upon which the whole force of it is 
directed to play. Such a thing would batter the whole 
universe about our ears, brother Shandy, said my 
uncle Toby — if it was so — Unhappy Tristram ! child 
of wrath ! child of discrepitude ! interruption ! mis- 
take ! and discontent ! 


86 


THE STORY OF 


Still, brother Toby, there was one cast of the dye 
left for our child after all — 0 Tristram ! Tristram ! 
Tristram ! 

We will send for Mr. Yorick, said my uncle Toby. 

You may send for whom you will, replied my 
father. 

Can the thing be undone, Yorick 1 said my father 
— for in my opinion, continued he, it cannot. _ I 
am a vile canonist, replied Yorick — but of all evils, 
holding suspense to be the most tormenting, we shall 
at least know the worst of this matter. I hate these 
great dinners — said my father. The size of the dinner 
is not the point, answered Yorick — we want, Mr. 
Shandy, to dive into the bottom of this doubt, whether 
the name can be changed or not — and as the beards 
of so many commissaries, officials, advocates, proctors, 
registers, and of the most eminent of our school 
divines, and others, are all to meet in the middle of 
one table, and Didius has so pressingly invited you — 
who in your distress would miss such an occasion h 
All that is requisite, continued Yorick, is to apprize 
Didius, and let him manage a conversation after din- 
ner so as to introduce the subject. Then my brother 
Toby, cried my father, clapping his two hands to- 
gether, shall go with us. 

Let my old tye-wig, quoth my uncle Toby, and my 
laced regimentals, be hung to the fire all night, Trim. 

We’ll go in the coach, said my father — prithee, have 
the arms been altered, Obadiah 1 — It would have made 
my story much better to have begun with telling you, 
that at the time my mother’s arms were added to the 
Shandys’, when the coach was repainted upon my 
father’s marriage, it had so fallen out, that the coach- 
painter, whether by performing all his works with the 
left hand, like Turpilius the Roman, or Hans Holbein 
of Basil — or whether ’twas more from the blunder of 
his head than hand — or whether, lastly, it was 
from the sinister turn, which everything relating to 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


87 

our family was apt to take — it so fell out, however, to 
our reproach, that instead of the bend dexter, which 
since Harry the Eighth’s reign was honestly our due — 
a bend sinister, by some of these fatalities, had been 
drawn quite across the field of the Shandy arms. ’Tis 
scarce credible that the mind of so wise a man as my 
father was, could be so much incommoded with so 
small a matter. The word coach — let it be whose it 
would — or coachman, or coach-horse, or coach-hire, 
could never be named in the family, but he constantly 
complained of carrying this vile mark of illegitimacy 
upon the door of his own ; he never once was able 
to step into the coach, or out of it, without turning 
round to take a view of the arms, and making a vow 
at the same time, that it was the last time he would 
ever set his foot in it again, till the bend-sinister was 
taken out — but like the affair of the hinge, it was one 
of the many things which the destinies had set down 
in their books — ever to be grumbled at (and in wiser 
families than ours) — but never to be mended. 

Has the bend-sinister been brushed out, I say] 
said my father. — There has been nothing brushed out, 
sir, answered Obadiah, but the lining. We’ll go o’ 
horseback, said my father, turning to Yorick. 

— Now, quoth Didius, rising up, and laying his right 
hand with his fingers spread upon his breast — had 
such a blunder about a Christian name happened 
before the reformation — [It happened the day before 
yesterday, quoth my uncle Toby to himself] and when 
baptism was administered in Latin — [’Twas all in 
English, said my uncle] — many things might have 
coincided with it, and upon the authority of sundry 
decreed cases, to have pronounced the baptism null, 
with the power of giving the child a new name — had 
a priest, for instance, which was no uncommon thing, 
through ignorance of the Latin tongue, baptised a 
child of Tom-o’-Stiles, in nomine patriae & jilia & 
spiritum sanctos — the baptism was held null. — I beg 


THE STORY OF 


88 

your pardon, replied Kysarcius— in that case, as the 
mistake was only the terminations, the baptism was 
valid — and to have rendered it null the blunder of 
the priest should have fallen upon the first syllable 
of each noun— and not, as in your case, upon the 
last. 

My father delighted in subtleties of this kind, and 
listened with infinite attention. 

Gastripheres, for example, continued Kysarcius, 
baptizes a child of John Stradling’s in Gomine gatris, 
&c. &c., instead of in Nomine patris , &c. — Is this a 
baptism % No — say the ablest canonists ; inasmuch as 
the radix of each word is hereby torn up, and the 
sense and meaning of them removed and changed 
quite to another object ; for Gomine does not signify 
a name, nor gatris a father. — What do they signify 1 
said my uncle Toby. — Nothing at all, quoth Yorick. 
— Ergo, such a baptism is null, said Kysarcius. — In 
course, answered Yorick, in a tone two parts jest and 
. one part earnest. 

But in the case cited, continued Kysarcius, where 
patrim is put for patris, fiUa for Jilii, and so on — as it 
is a fault' only in the declension, and the roots of the 
words continue untouched, the inflexions of their 
branches, either this way or that, does not in any sort 
hinder the baptism, inasmuch as the same sense con- 
tinues in the words as before. — But then, said Didius, 
the intention of the priest’s pronouncing them gram- 
matically, must have been proved to have gone along 
with it. — Right, answered Kysarcius ; and of this, 
brother Didius, we have an instance in a decree of the 
decretals of Pope Leo III. — But my brother’s child, 
cried my uncle Toby, has nothing to do with the 
pope — ’tis the plain child of a protestant gentleman, 
christened Tristram against the wills and wishes 
both of his father and mother, and all who are a kin 
to it. 

If the wills and wishes, said Kysarcius, interrupt- 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 89 

ing my uncle Toby, of those only who stand related 
to Mr. Shandy’s child, were to have weight in this 
matter, Mrs. Shandy, of all people, has the least to do 
in it. My uncle Toby laid down his pipe, and my 
father drew his chair still closer to the table, to hear 
the conclusion of so strange an introduction. 

It has not only been a question, captain Shandy, 
amongst the best lawyers and civilians in this land, 
continued Kysarcius, “Whether the mother be of 
kin to her child,” — but, after much dispassionate 
enquiry and jactitation of the arguments on all sides 
— it has been adjudged for the negative— namely, 
“ That the mother is not of kin to her child.” My 
father instantly clapped his hand upon my uncle 
Toby’s mouth, under colour of whispering in his ear ; 
— the truth was, he was alarmed for Lillibullero — and 
having a great desire to hear more of so curious an 
argument — he begged my uncle Toby, for heaven’s 
sake, not to disappoint him in it. — My uncle Toby gave 
a nod — resumed his pipe, and contenting himself with 
whistling Lillibullero inwardly — Kysarcius, Didius, 
and Triptolemus went on with the discourse as 
follows. 

This determination, considered Kysarcius, how con- 
trary soever it may seem to run to the stream of 
vulgar ideas, yet had reason strongly on its side ; and 
has been put out of all manner of dispute from the 
famous case, known commonly by the name of the 
Duke of Suffolk’s case, where the judges, with the 
master of the faculties, were all unanimously of opinion, 
that the mother was not of kin to her child. 

And what said the Duchess of Suffolk to it said 
my uncle Toby. 

The unexpectedness of my uncle Toby’s question 
confounded Kysarcius more than the ablest advocate 
— he stopped a full minute, looking in my uncle 
Toby’s face without replying. The company broke up. 

And pray, said my uncle Toby, leaning upon Yorick, 


THE STOBY OF 


90 

as he and my father were helping him leisurely down 
stairs — don’t be terrified, madam, this staircase con- 
versation is not so long as the last — And pray, Yorick, 
said my uncle Toby, which way is this said affair of 
Tristram at length settled by these learned men? 
Very satisfactorily, replied Yorick ; no mortal, sir, 
has any concern with it — for Mrs. Shandy the mother 
is nothing at all akin to him — and as the mother’s is 
the surest side — Mr. Shandy, in course, is still less 
than nothing — in short, he is not as much akin to him, 
sir, as I am. 

That may well be, said my father, shaking his 
head. 

Let the learned say what they will, there must 
certainly, quoth my uncle Toby, have been some sort 
of consanguinity betwixt the Duchess of Suffolk and 
her son. — 

The vulgar are of the same opinion, quoth Yorick, 
to this hour. — 

Though my father was hugely tickled with the sub- 
tleties of these learned discourses — ’twas still but like 
the anointing of a broken bone — The moment he got 
home, the weight of his afflictions returned upon him 
but so much the heavier, as is ever the case when the 
staff we lean on slips from under us — He became pen- 
sive — walked frequently forth to the fish-pond — let 
down one loop of his hat — sighed often — forebore to 
snap — and as the hasty sparks of temper, which 
occasion snapping, so much assist perspiration and 
digestion, as Hippocrates tells us — he had certainly 
fallen ill with the extinction of them, had not his 
thoughts been critically drawn off, and his health 
rescued by a fresh train of disquietudes left him, with 
a legacy of a thousand pounds by my aunt Dinah. — 

My father had scarce read the letter, when taking 
the thing by the right end, he instantly began to 
plague and puzzle his head how to lay it out mostly 
to the honour of his family. — A hundred and fifty odd 


MY UNCLE TOLY. 


9i 

projects took possession of his brains by turns— lie 
would do this, and that, and t’other— he would go to 
Rome — he would go to law — he would buy stock — he 
would buy John Hobson’s farm — he would new fore- 
front his house, and add a new wing to make it even 
— there was a fine water-mill on this side, and he 
would build a wind-mill on the other side of the river 
in full view to answer it — But above all things in the 
world, he would enclose the great Ox-moor , and send 
out my brother Bobby immediately upon his travels. 

But as the sum was finite, and consequently could 
not do everything — and in truth very few of these to 
any purpose — of all the projects which offered them- 
selves upon this occasion, the two last seemed to make 
the deepest impression ; and he would infallibly 
have determined upon both at once, but for the small 
inconvenience hinted at above, which absolutely put 
him under a necessity of deciding in favour either of 
the one or the other. — 

People may laugh as they will — but the case was this. 

It had ever been the custom of the family, and by 
length of time was almost become a matter of common 
right, that the eldest son of it should have free ingress, 
egress, and regress, into foreign parts before marriage 
not only for the sake of bettering himself by the benefit 
of exercise and change of so much air — but simply for 
the mere delectation of his fancy, by the feather put 
into his cap, of having been abroad — tcmtiim valet , 
my father would say, quantum sonat. 

Now as this was a reasonable, and in course a most 
Christian indulgence — to deprive him of it, without 
why or wherefore — and thereby make an example of 
him, as the first Shandy unwhirled about Europe in a 
post-chaise, and only because he was a heavy lad 
— would be using him ten times worse than a Turk. 

On the other hand, the case of the Ox-moor was 
full as hard. 

Exclusive of the original purchase money, which 


92 THE STORY OF 

was eight hundred pounds — it had cost the family 
eight hundred pounds more in a law-suit about fifteen 
years before — besides the Lord knows what trouble 
and vexation. 

I think there must certainly have been a mixture of 
ill-luck in it, that the reasons on both sides should 
happen to be so equally balanced by each other ; for 
though my father weighed them in all humours and 
conditions — spent many an anxious hour in the most 
profound and abstracted meditation upon what was 
best to be done — reading books of farming one day — 
books of travels another — laying aside all passion 
whatever — viewing the arguments on both sides in all 
their lights and circumstances — communing every 
day with my uncle Toby — arguing with Yorick, and 
talking over the whole affair of the Ox-moor with 
Obadiah — yet nothing in all that time appeared so 
strongly in behalf of the one, which was not either 
strictly applicable to the other, or at least so far 
counterbalanced by some consideration of equal 
weight, as to keep the scales even. 

In point of interest — the contest, I own, at first 
sight, did not appear so undecisive betwixt them ; 
for whenever my father took pen and ink in hand, 
and set about calculating the simple expense of paring 
and burning, and fencing in the Ox-moor, &c. &c. — 
with the certain profit it would bring him in return — 
the latter turned out so prodigiously in Ills way of 
working the account, that you would have sworn the 
Ox-moor would have carried all before it. For it 
was plain he should reap a hundred lasts of 
rape, at twenty pounds a last, the very first year — 
besides an excellent crop of wheat the year following 
— and the year after that, to speak within bounds, 
a hundred— but, in all likelihood, a hundred and fifty 
— if not two hundred quarters of peas and beans — 
besides potatoes without end — But then, to think 
he was all this while breeding up my brother like a 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 93 

liog to eat them— knocked all on the head again, and 
generally left the old gentleman in such a state of 
suspense — that, as he often declared to my uncle 
Toby— he knew no more than his heels what to do. 

Nobody, but he who has felt it, can conceive what 
a plaguing thing it is to have a man’s mind torn 
asunder by two projects of equal strength, both 
obstinately pulling in a contrary direction at the same 
time. My father had certainly sunk under this evil, 
as certainly as he had done under that of my Chris- 
tian name — had he not been rescued out of it, as he 
was out of that, by a fresh evil— the misfortune of 
my brother Bobby’s death. 

. What is the life of man ! Is it not to shift from ^ 
side to side ^ — from sorrow to sorrow 1 — to button up j 
one cause of vexation 1 — and unbutton another^ 

When my father received the letter which brought 
him the melancholy account of my brother Bobby’s 
death, he was busy calculating the expense of his 
riding post from Calais to Paris, and so on to Lyons. 

’Twas a most inauspicious journey ; my father 
having had every foot of it to travel over again, and 
his calculation to begin afresh, when he had almost 
got to the end of it, by Obadiah’s opening the door to 
acquaint him the family was out of yeast— and to ask 
whether he might not take the great coach-horse early 
in the morning, and ride in search of some. — With all 
my heart, Obadiah, said my father, (pursuing his 
journey) — take the coach-horse, and welcome. — But 
he wants a shoe, poor creature ! said. Obadiah.— Poor 
creature ! said my uncle Toby, vibrating the note back 
again, like a string in unison. — He cannot bear a 
saddle upon his back, quoth Obadiah, for the whole 
world.— Then go on foot for your pains, cried my 
father.— I had much rather walk than ride, said 
Obadiah, shutting the door. 

What plagues ! cried my father, going on with his 


THE 7 STORY OF 


94 

calculation.— But the waters are out, said Obadiali,— 
opening the door again. 

Till that moment, my father, who had a map of 
Sanson’s and a book of the post roads before him, had 
kept his hand upon the head of the compasses, with 
one foot of them fixed upon Nevers, the last stage he 
had paid for — purposing to go on from that point with 
his journey and calculation, as soon as Obadiah quitted 
the room ; but this second attack of Obadiah’s in 
opening the door and laying the whole country under 
water, was too much. — He let go his compasses— or 
rather with a mixed motion betwixt accident and 
anger, he threw them upon the table ; and then there 
was nothing for him to do, but to return back to 
Calais (like many others) as wise as he had set out. 

When the letter was brought into the parlour, which 
contained the news of my brother’s death, my father 
had got forwards again upon his journey to within a 
stride of the compasses of the very same stage of 
Nevers. — By your leave, Monsieur Sanson, cried my 
father, striking the point of his compasses through 
Nevers into the table,— and nodding to my uncle 
Toby, to see what was in the letter,— twice of one 
night is too much for an English gentleman and his son, 
Monsieur Sanson, to be turned back from so lousy a 
town as Nevers,— what thinkest thou, Toby 1 added 
my father, in a sprightly tone.— Unless it be a garri- 
son town, said my uncle Toby, — for then — I shall be 
a fool, said my father, smiling to himself, as long as I 
live. — So giving a second nod— and keeping his com- 
passes still upon Nevers with one hand, and holding 
liis book of the post roads in the other — half calcu- 
lating and half listening, he leaned forwards upon the 
table with both elbows, as my uncle Toby hummed 
over the letter. 


he’s gone ! 

said my uncle Toby.— Where— who 1 cried my father. 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


■ 95 

My nephew, said my uncle Toby.— What— without 
leave— without money — without governor'? cried my 
father in amazement. No :— he is dead, my dear 
brother, quoth my uncle Toby. — Without being ill % 
cried my father again. — I daresay not, said my uncle 
Toby, in a low voice, and fetching a deep sigh from 
the bottom of his heart, he has been ill enough, poor 
lad ! I’ll answer for him— for he is dead. 

My father was proud of his eloquence as Marcus 
Tullius Cicero could be for his life, and for aught I am 
convinced of the contrary at present, with as much 
reason : it was indeed his strength — and his weak- 
ness too. — A blessing which tied up my father’s 
tongue, and a misfortune which set it loose with a 
grace, were pretty equal : sometimes, indeed, the 
misfortune was the better of the two ; for instance, 
where the pleasure of the harangue was as ten, and 
the pain of the misfortune but as five — my father 
gained half-in-half, and consequently was as well 
again off, as it never had befallen him. 

This clue will unravel what otherwise would seem 
very inconsistent in my father’s domestic character ; 
and it is this, that in the provocations arising from 
the neglects and blunders of servants, or other 
mishaps unavoidable in a family, his anger, or rather 
the duration of it, eternally ran counter to all con- 
jecture. 

Now let us go back to my brother’s death. 

Philosophy has a fine saying for everything.— For ^ 
death it has an entire set ; the misery was, they all at 
once rushed into my father’s head, that ’twas difficult 
to string them together, so as to make anything of a 
consistent show out of them. — He took them as they 
came. 

“’Tis an inevitable chance — the first statute in Magna 
Charta — it is an everlasting act of parliament, my 
dear brother, — All must die. 


96 


THF STORY OF 


“ If my son could not have died, it had been a matter 
of wonder, — not that he is dead. 

“ Monarchs and princes dance in the same ring 
with us. 

f “To die is the great debt and tribute due unto 
nature : tombs and monuments, which should per- 
petuate our memories, pay it themselves ; and the 
proudest pyramid of them all, which wealth and 
science have erected, has lost its apex, and stands 

v obtruncated in the traveller’s horizon.” (My father 
found he got great ease, and went on)— “ Kingdoms 
and provinces, and towns, and cities, have they not 
their periods % and when those principles and powers, 
which at first cemented and put them together, have 
performed their several evolutions, they fall back.” 
—Brother Shandy, said my uncle Toby, laying down 
his pipe at the word evolutions — Revolutions, I mean, 
quoth my father,— by heaven ! I meant revolutions, 
brother Toby — evolutions is nonsense. — ’Tis not non- 
sense — said my uncle Toby— But is it not nonsense to 
break the thread of such a discourse, upon such an 
occasion 1 cried my father— Do not — dear Toby, con- 
tinued he, taking him by the hand, do not — do not, 
I beseech thee, interrupt me at this crisis. — My uncle 
Toby put his pipe into his mouth. 

( “Where is Troy and Mycenae, and Thebes, and 
Delos, and Persepolis, and Agrigentum T— continued 
my father, taking up his book of post roads, which he 
had laid down.— “What is become, brother Toby, of 
Nineveh and Babylon, of Cizicum and Mitylenae 1- 
Returning out of Asia, when I sailed from JEgina 
towards Megara,” (when can this have been % thought 
my uncle Toby) “ I began to view the country round 
about. iEgina was behind me, Megara was before, 
Pyraeus on the right hand, Corinth on the left. — What 
flourishing towns now prostrate upon the earth ! 
Alas ! said I to myself, that man should disturb his 
soul for the loss of a child, when so much as this lies 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


97 

awfully buried in his presence — Remember, said I to 
myself again— remember thou art a man. J 

Now my uncle Toby knew not that this last para- 
graph was an extract of Servius Sulpicius’s consolatory 
letter to Tully. — He had as little skill, honest man, 
in the fragments, as he had in the whole pieces of 
antiquity. — And as my father, whilst he was concerned 
in the Turkey trade, had been three or four different 
times in the Levant, in one of which he had stayed a 
whole year and a half at Zant, my uncle Toby 
naturally concluded, that in some one of these periods 
he had taken a trip across the Archipelago into Asia ; 
and that all this sailing affair with iEgina behind, and 
Megara before, and Pyrseus on the right hand, &c. &c. 
was nothing more than the true course of my father’s 
voyage and reflections. — ’Twas certainly in his man- 
ner and many an undertaking critic would have 
built two stories higher upon worse foundations. 
— And pray, brother, quoth my uncle Toby, laying the 
end of his pipe upon my father’s hand in a kindly 
■way of interruption— but waiting till he had finished 
the account — what year of our Lord was this 1 — ’Twas 
no year of our Lord, replied my father. — That’s 
impossible, cried my uncle Toby. — Simpleton ! said 
my father, — ’twas forty years before Christ was 
born. 

My uncle Toby had but two things for it ; either to 
suppose his brother to be the wandering J ew, or that ) 
his misfortunes had disordered his brain. — “ May the 
Lord God of heaven and earth protect him and restore 
him,” said my uncle Toby, praying silently for my 
father, and with tears in his eyes. 

My father placed the tears to a proper account, and 
went on with his harangue with great spirit. 

“There is not such great odds, brother Toby, 
betwixt good and evil, as the world imagines ” — (this 
way of setting off, by-the-bye, was not likely to cure my 
uncleToby’s suspicions).— “Labour, sorrow, grief, sick- 


9 8 THE STOUT OF 

ness, want, and woe, are the sauces of life.” — Much 
good may it do them.— said my uncle Toby to himself. 

“ My son is dead ! — so much the better ; — ’tis a 
shame in such a tempest to have but one anchor. 

^ “ But he is gone for ever from us ! — be it so. He is 

got from under the hands of his barber before he was 
bald— he is but risen from a feast before he was sur- 
feited — from a banquet before he had got drunken. 

“The Thracians wept when a child was born” — 
(and we were very near it, quoth my uncle Toby) — 
“ and feasted and made merry when a man went out 
of the world ; and with reason. — Death opens the gate 
of fame, and shuts the gate of envy after it, — it un- 
looses the chain of the captive, and puts the bonds- 
! man’s task into another man’s hands. 

“Show me the man, who knows what life is, 
who dreads it, and I’ll show thee a prisoner who 
dreads his liberty.” 

Is it not better, my dear brother Toby, (for mark — 
our appetites are but diseases) — is it not better not to 
hunger at all, than to eat 1 — not to thirst, than to take 
physic to cure it ] 

Is it not better to be freed from cares and agues, 
from love and melancholy, and the other hot and cold 
fits of life, than like a galled traveller, who comes 
weary to his inn, to be bound to begin his journey 
afresh 1 

There is no terror, brother Toby, in its looks, but 
what it borrows from groans and convulsions — and 
the blowing of noses, and the wiping away of tears 
with the bottoms of curtains in a dying man’s room. 
— Strip it of these, what is it 1 — ’Tis better in battle 
than in bed, said my uncle Toby. — Take away its 
hearses, its mutes and its mourning, — its plumes, 
scutcheons, and other mechanic aids — What is it ! — 
Better in battle ! continued my father, smiling, for he 
had absolutely forgot my brother Bobby— ’tis terrible no 
way— for consider, brother Toby, — when we are — 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


99 

death is not and when death is — we are not. My 
uncle Toby laid down his pipe to consider the proposi- 
tion ; my father’s eloquence was too rapid to stay for 
any man — away it went,— and hurried my uncle Toby’s 
ideas along with it. 

F or this reason, continued my father, ’tis worthy 
to recollect, how little alteration in great men the 
approaches of death have made — Vespasian died in a 
jest — Galba with a sentence — Septimus Severus in a 
despatch — and Caesar Augustus in a compliment. I 
hope ’twas a sincere one, quoth my uncle Toby. — 
’Twas to his wife, said my father. 

My mother was going very gingerly in the dark 
along the passage which led to the parlour, as my 
uncle Toby pronounced the word wife. — ’Tis a shrill 
penetrating sound of itself, so that my mother heard 
enough of it to imagine herself the subject of the con- 
versation : so laying the edge of her finger across her 
two lips, holding in her breath, and bending her head 
a little downwards, with a twist of her neck — she lis- 
tened with all her powers. — She listened with com- 
posed intelligence, and would have done so to the end 
of the chapter, had not my father plunged (which he 
had no occasion to have done) into that part of the 
pleading where the great philosopher reckons up his 
connexions, his alliances, "and children ; but renounces 
a security to be so won by working upon the passions 
of his judges. — “I have friends — -I have relations, — I 
have three desolate children,” — says Socrates. 

Then, cried my mother, opening the door, — you have 
one more, Mr. Shandy, than I know of. 

By heaven ! I have one less, — said my father, get- 
ting up, and walking out of the room. 

They are Socrates’ children, said my uncle Toby. 
He has been dead a hundred years ago, replied my 
mother. 

My uncle Toby was no chronologer— so not caring 
to advance a step but upon safe ground, he laid down 

7-2 


100 


THE STORY OF 


his pipe deliberately upon the table, and rising up, 
and taking my mother most kindly by the hand, 
without saying another word, either good or bad to 
her, he led her out after my father, that he might 
finish the eclaircissement himself. 

Now whenever an extraordinary message, or letter, 
was delivered in the parlour, — or a discourse suspended 
till a servant went out — or the lines of discontent were 
observed to hang upon the brows of my father or 
mother — or, in short, when anything was supposed to 
be upon the tapis worth knowing or listening to, 
’twas the rule to leave the door, not absolutely shut, 
but somewhat ajar, which under covert of the bad 
hinge (and that possibly might be one of the many 
reasons why it was never mended), it was not difficult 
to manage ; by which means, in all these cases, a 
passage was generally left, not indeed as wide as the 
Dardanelles, but wide enough, for all that, to carry on 
as much of this windward trade as was sufficient to 
save my father the trouble of governing his house. 
My mother at this moment stands profiting by it — 
Obadiah did the same thing, as soon as he had left the 
letter upon the table which brought the news of my 
brother’s death ; so that before my father had well 
got over his surprise, and entered upon his harangue, 
— had Trim got upon his legs, to speak his sentiments 
upon the subject. 

My young master in London is dead ! said Oba- 
diah — 

A green satin nightgown of my mother’s which had 
been twice scoured, was the first idea which Obadiah’s 
exclamation brought into Susannah’s head. — Well 
might Locke write a chapter upon the imperfections 
of words. — Then, quoth Susannah, we must all go into 
mourning. — But note a second time : the word mourn- 
ing, notwithstanding Susannah made use of it herself 
— -failed also of doing its office ; it excited not one 
single idea, tinged either with grey or black, — all was 
green. — The green satin nightgown hung there still. 


IOI 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 

0 ! ’twill be the death of my poor mistress, cried 
Susannah. — My mother’s whole wardrobe followed. — 
What a procession ! her red damask, — her orange- 
tawny, — her white and yellow lustrings, — her brown 
taffata, — her bone-laced caps, her bedgowns, and 
comfortable under petticoats. — Not a rag was left be- 
hind. — “ No, — she will never look up again/’ said 
Susannah. 

We had a fat foolish scullion — my father, I think, 
kept her for her simplicity ; — she had been all autumn 
struggling with a dropsy. — He is dead, said Obadiah, 
— he is certainly dead ! — So am not I, said the foolish 
scullion. 

Here is sad news, Trim ! cried Susannah, wiping 
her eyes as Trim stepped into the kitchen, — master 
Bobby is dead and buried — the funeral was an inter- 
polation of Susannah’s — we shall have all to go into 
mourning, said Susannah. 

1 hope not, said Trim ! — You hope not ! cried 
Susannah earnestly. — The mourning ran not in Trim’s 
head, whatever it did in Susannah’s. — I hope, said 
Trim, explaining himself, I hope in God the news is 
not true. — I heard the letter read with my own ears, 
answered Obadiah ; and we shall have a terrible piece 
of work of it in stubbing the ox-moor. — Oh! he’s 
dead, said Susannah. — As sure, said the scullion, as I 
am alive. 

I lament for him, from my heart and my soul, said 
Trim, fetching a sigh. — Poor creature ! — poor boy ! 
poor gentleman ! 

He was alive last Whitsuntide, said the coachman. 
— Whitsuntide ! alas ! cried Trim, extending his right 
arm, and falling instantly into the same attitude in 
which he read his sermon, — what is Whitsuntide, 
Jonathan (for that was the coachman’s name,) or 
Shrovetide, or any tide or time past, to this ? Are we 
not here now, continued the corporal, (striking the 
end of his stick perpendicularly upon the floor, so as 


102 


THE STOUT OF 


to give an idea of health and stability) —and are we 
not — (dropping his hat upon the ground) gone ! in a 
moment !— ’Twas infinitely striking ! Susannah burst 
into a flood of tears. We are not stocks and stones. 
— Jonathan, Obadiah, the cook-maid, all melted. — The 
foolish fat scullion herself, who was scouring a fish- 
kettle upon her knees, was roused with it. The whole 
kitchen crowded about the corporal. 

— “ Are we not here now — continued the corporal, 

“ and are we not ” — (dropping his hat plump upon the 
ground — and pausing before he pronounced the word) 
— “ gone ! in a moment V The descent of the hat was 
as if a heavy lump of clay had been kneaded into 
the crown of it. — Nothing could have expressed the 
sentiment of mortality, of which it was the type and 
forerunner, like it, — his hand seemed to vanish from 
under it, — it fell dead, — the corporal’s eye fixed upon 
it, as upon a corpse, — and Susannah burst into a flood 
of tears. 

— To us, Jonathan, who know not what want or care 
is — who live here in the service of two of the best of 
masters — (bating in my own case his majesty King 
William the Third, whom I had the honour to serve 
both in Ireland and Flanders) — I own it, that from 
Whitsuntide to within three weeks of Christmas, — 
’tis not long — ’tis like nothing ; — but to those, Jonathan, 
who knew what death is, and what havoc and des- 
truction he can make, before a man can wheel about 
— ’tis like a whole age. 0 J onathan ! ’twould make 
a good-natured man’s heart bleed, to consider, con- 
tinued the corporal (standing perpendicularly), how 
low many a brave and upright fellow has been laid 
since that time ! And trust me, Susy, added the 
corporal, turning to Susannah, whose eyes were swim- 
ming in water, — before that time comes round again, — 
many a bright eye will be dim. Susannah placed it 
to the right side of the page — she wept — but she 
curtseyed too. Are we not, continued Trim, looking 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


103 

still at Susannah, — are we not like a flower of the 
field — a tear of pride stole in betwixt every two tears 
of humiliation— else no tongue could have described 
Susannah’s affliction — is not all flesh grass h Tis clay 
— ’tis dirt. They all looked directly at the scullion, — 
the scullion had just been scouring a fish-kettle. It 
was not fair. 

What is the finest face that ever man looked at ! — I 
could hear Trim talk so for ever, cried Susannah, — 
what is it ! (Susannah laid her hand upon Trim’s 
shoulder) — but corruption'? — Susannah took it off. 

F or my own part, I declare it, that out of doors, I 
value not death at all : — not this... added the corporal, 
snapping his fingers, — but with an air which no one 
but the corporal could have given to the sentiment. 

In battle I value death not this and let him not 

take me cowardly, like poor Joe Gibbons, in scouring 
his gun. What is he 1 A pull of a trigger — a push of 
a bayonet an inch this way or that — makes the differ- 
ence. Look along the line — to the right — see ! Jack’s 
down ! well — ’tis worth a regiment of horse to him. 
No — ’tis Dick. Then Jack’s no worse. — Never mind 
which, — we pass on, — in hot pursuit the wound itself 
which brings him is not felt, — the best way is to stand 
up to him, — the man who flies, is in ten times more 
danger than the man who marches up into his jaws. 
I’ve looked him, added the corporal, an hundred times 
in the face, — and know what he is. — He’s nothing, 
Obadiah, at all in the field. — But he’s very frightful in 
a house, quoth Obadiah. — I never mind it myself, said 
Jonathan, upon a coach-box. — It must, in my opinion, 
be most natural in bed, replied Susannah. — And could 
I escape him by creeping into the worst calf’s-skin 
that ever was made into a knapsack, I would do it 
there— said Trim — but that is nature. 

— Nature is nature, said Jonathan. — And that is the 
reason, cried Susannah, I so much pity my mistress. 
She will never get the better of it. — Now I pity the 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


104 

captain the most of any one in the family, answered 
Trim. — Madam will get ease of heart in weeping — and 
the squire in talking about it, — but my poor master 
will keep it all in silence to himself. — I shall hear him 
sigh in his bed for a whole month together, as he did 
for lieutenant Le Fever. An’ please your honour, do not 
sigh so piteously, I would say to him as I lay beside 
him. I cannot help it, Trim, my master would say, — 
’tis so melancholy an accident — I cannot get it off my 
heart. — Your honour fears not death yourself. — I hope, 
( Trim, I fear nothing, he would say, but the doing a 
wrong thing. — Well, he would add, whatever betides, 
I will take care of Le Fever’s boy — And with that, like 
^ a quieting draught, his honour would fall asleep. 

I like to hear Trim’s stories about the captain, said 
Susannah. — He is a kindly-hearted gentleman, said 
Obadiah, as ever lived. — Aye — and as brave a one too, 
said the corporal, as ever stepped before a platoon. — 
There never was a better officer in the king’s army, — 
or a better man in God’s world ; for he would march 
up to the mouth of a cannon, though he saw the lighted 
match at the very touchhole, — and yet, for all that, he 
has a heart as soft as a child for other people. — He 
would not hurt a' chicken. — I would sooner, quoth 
Jonathan, drive such a gentleman for seven pounds a- 
year — than some for eight. Thank thee, Jonathan ! 
for thy twenty shillings, — as much, Jonathan, said the 
corporal, shaking him by the hand, as if thou hadst put 
the money into my own pocket. — I would serve him 
to the day of my death out of love. He is a friend 
and a brother to me — and could I be sure my poor 
brother Tom was dead, —continued the corporal, taking 
out his handkerchief, — was I worth ten thousand 
pounds, I would leave every shilling of it to the cap- 
tain. Trim could not refrain from tears at this testa- 
mentary proof he gave of his affection to his master. 
The whole kitchen was affected. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

MY FATHER’S GRAND TRISTRA-PiEDIA. 

HE first tiling which entered my father’s 
head, after affairs were a little settled in the 
family, and Susannah had got possession of 
my mother’s green satin nightgown, — was to 
sit down coolly, after the example of Xenophon, and 
write a Tristra-psedia, or system of education for me ; 
collecting first for that purpose his own scattered 
thoughts, counsels, and notions ; and binding them 
together, so as to form an institute for the government 
of my childhood and adolescence. I was my father’s 
last stake —he had lost my brother Bobby entirely, — 
he had lost, by his own computation, full three-fourths 
of me — that is, he had been unfortunate in his three 
first great casts for me — my geniture, nose, and name, 
— there was but this one left ; and accordingly my 
father gave himself up to it with as much devotion 
as ever my uncle Toby had done to his doctrine of 
projectiles. 

In about three years, or something more, my father 
had 'got advanced almost into the middle of his work. 
— Like all other writers, he met with disappointments. 
— He imagined he should be able to bring whatever 
he had to say into so small a compass, that when it 
was finished and bound it might be rolled up in my 
mother’s housewife. 

This is the best account I am determined to give of 




THE STORY OF 


106 

tlie slow progress my father made in his Tristra- 
pcedia ; at which (as I said) he was three years, and 
something more, indefatigably at work, and, at last, 
had scarce completed, by his own reckoning, one half 
of his undertaking : the misfortune was that I was 
all that time totally neglected and abandoned to my 
mother : and what was almost as bad, by the very 
delay, the first part of the work, upon which my 
father had spent the most of his pains, was rendered 
entirely useless — every day a page or two became of 
no consequence — 

— No — I think I have advanced nothing, replied my 
father, making answer to a question which Yorick had 
taken the liberty to put to him — I have advanced 
nothing in the Tristra-pcedia , but what is as clear as 
any one proposition in Euclid. — Reach me, Trim, that 
book from off the scrutoire. — It has oftentimes been 
in my mind, continued my father, to have read it over, 
both to you, Yorick, and to my brother Toby ; and I 
think it a little unfriendly in myself, in not having 
done it long ago. — Shall we have a short chapter or 
two now, — and a chapter or two hereafter, as occasions 
serve ; and so on, till we get through the whole % My 
uncle Toby and Yorick made the obeisance which 
was proper ; and the corporal, though he was not 
included in the compliment, laid his hand upon his 
breast, and made his bow at the same time. — The 
company smiled. Trim, quoth my father, has paid 
the full price for staying out the entertainment. 

My uncle Toby never felt the consciousness of his 
existence with more complacency than what the cor- 
poral’s and his own reflections made him do at that 
moment : — he lighted his pipe. — Yorick drew his chair 
closer to the table, — Trim snuffed the candle,— my 
father stirred up the fire, — took up the book, — coughed 
twice, and began. 

I enter upon this speculation, said my father care- 
lessly, and half shutting the book, as he went on, — 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


107 

merely to show the foundation of the natural relation 
between a father and his child; the right and juris- 
diction over whom he acquires these several ways — 

1st, by marriage. 

2nd, by adoption. 

3rd, by legitimation. 

And 4th, by creation ; all which I consider in their 
order. 

I lay a slight stress upon one of them ; replied 
Yorick — the last, especially where it ends there, in my 
opinion lays as little obligation upon the child, as it 
conveys power to the father.— You are wrong, — said 
my father argutely. I own that the offspring, upon 
this account, is not so under the power and jurisdic- 
tion of the mother. — But the reason, replied Yorick, 
equally holds good for her. — She is under authority 
herself, said my father. — In what 1 quoth my uncle 
Toby.- -Though by all means, added my father (not 
attending to my uncle Toby), “ The son ought to pay 
her respect f as you may read, Yorick, at large in the 
first book of the Institutes of Justinian, at the eleventh 
title and the tenth section... I can read it as well, re- 
plied Yorick, in the catechism. 

Trim can repeat every word of it by heart, quoth 
my uncle Toby. — 

Pugh ! said my father, not caring to be interrupted 
with Trim’s saying his catechism. He can, upon my 
honour, replied my uncle Toby. — Ask him. Mr. Yorick, 
any question you please. — 

The fifth commandment, Trim, — said Yorick, speak- 
ing mildly, and with a gentle nod, as to a modest 
catechumen. The corporal stood silent. — You don’t 
ask him right, said my uncle Toby, raising his voice, 
and giving it rapidly, like the word of command ; — 

The fifth cried my uncle Toby. — I must begin 

with the first, an’ please your honour, said the cor- 
poral. — 


io8 


THE STORY OF 


Yorick could not forbear smiling. — Your reverence 
does not consider, said the corporal, shouldering his 
stick like a musket, and marching into the middle of 
the room, to illustrate his position, — that ’tis exactly 
the same thing, as doing one’s exercise in the field. — 
“Join your right hand to your firelock,” cried the 
corporal, giving the word of command, and perform- 
ing the motion. — 

“ Poise your firelock,” cried the corporal, doing the 
duty still of both adjutant and private man. — 

“ Pest your firelock,” — one motion, an’ please your 
reverence, you see, leads into another.— If his honour 
will begin but with the first. — 

The first— cried my uncle Toby, setting his hand 
upon his side — 

The second— cried my uncle Toby, waving his 
tobacco-pipe, as he would have done his sword at the 
head of a regiment. — The corporal went through his 
manual with exactness ; and having honoured his 
father and mother , made a low bow, and fell back to 
the side of the room. 

Everything in the world, said my father, is big with 
jest, — and has wit in it, and instruction too,— if we 
can but find it out. 

— Here is the scaffold work of instruction, its true 
point of folly, without the building behind it — 

— Sciences may be learned by rote, but Wisdom not. 
Yorick thought my father inspired. — I will enter 
into obligations this moment, said my father, to lay 
out all my aunt Dinah’s legacy, in charitable uses (of 
which, by the bye, my father had no high opinion) if 
the corporal has any one determinate idea annexed to 
any one word he has repeated. — Prithee, Trim, quoth 
my father, turning round to him, — What do’st thou 
mean, by “ honouring thy father and mother V 1 
Allowing them, an’ please your honour, three half- 
pence a day out of my pay, when they grew old. — 
And didst thou do that, Trim 1 said Yorick. — He did 


MY UNCLE TOBY. l09 

indeed, replied my nncle Toby.— Then, Trim, said 
Yorick, springing ont of his chair, and taking the 
corporal by the hand, thou art the best commentator 
upon that part of the Decalogue ; and I honour thee 
more for it, corporal Trim, than if thou hadst had a 
hand in the Talmud itself. 

0 blessed health ! cried my father, making an ex- 'N 
clamation, as he turned over the leaves to the next 
chapter, — thou art above all gold and treasure ; ’tis 
thou who enlargest the soul, — and openest all its 
powers to receive instruction and to relish virtue. — 
He that has thee, has little more to wish for ; — and he 
that is so wretched as to want thee,— wants everything \ 
with thee. 

1 have concentrated all that can be said upon this 
important head, said my father, into a very little room, 
therefore we’ll read the chapter quite through. 

My father read as follows. 

“ The whole secret of health depending upon the 
due contention for mastery betwixt the radical heat 
and the radical moisture” — you have proved that 
matter of fact, I suppose, above, said Yorick. Suffi- 
ciently, replied my father. 

In saying this, my father shut the book, — not as if 
he resolved to read no more of it, for he kept his 
forefinger in the chapter : — nor pettishly, — for he shut 
the book slowly ; his thumb resting, when he had 
done it, upon the upper side of the cover, as his three 
fingers supported the lower side of it, without the least 
compressive violence. 

I have demonstrated the truth of that point, quoth 
my father, nodding to Yorick, most sufficiently in the 
preceding chapter. 

The description of the siege of Jericho itself, could 
not have engaged the attention of my uncle Toby 
more powerfully ; — his eyes were fixed upon my father 
throughout it ; — he never mentioned radical heat and 
radical moisture, but my uncle Toby took his pipe 


no 


THE STOUT OF 


out of his mouth, and shook his head • and as soon as 
the chapter was finished, he beckoned to the corporal 
to come close to his chair, to ask him a question. 

It was at the siege of Limerick, an’ please your 
honour, replied the corporal, making a bow. 

The poor fellow and I, quoth my uncle Toby, ad- 
dressing himself to my father, were scarce able to 
crawl out of our tents, at the time the siege of Limerick 
was raised, upon the very account you mention. — Now 
what can have got into that precious noddle of thine, 
my dear brother Toby ^ cried my father, mentally. — 
By heaven ! continued he, communing still with 
himself, it would puzzle an GEdipus to bring it in 
point.— 

I believe, an’ please your honour, quoth the corporal, 
that if it had not been for the quantity of brandy we 
set fire to every night, and the claret and cinnamon 
with which I plied your honour off ; — And the geneva, 
Trim, added my uncle Toby, which did us more good 
than all — I verily believe, continued the corporal, we 
had both, an’ please your honour, left our lives in the 
trenches, and been buried in them too. — The noblest 
grave, corporal ! cried my uncle Toby, his eyes spark- 
ling as he spoke, that a soldier could wish to lie down 
in. — But a pitiful death for him ! an’ please your 
honour, replied the corporal. 

All this was as much Arabic to my father, as the 
rites of Colchi and Troglodites had been before to my 
uncle Toby ; my father could not determine whether 
he was to frown or smile — 

My uncle Toby, turning to Yorick, resumed the 
case at Limerick, more intelligibly than he had begun 
it, — and so settled the point for my father at once. 

It was undoubtedly, said my uncle Toby, a great 
happiness for myself and the corporal, that we had all 
along a burning fever, attended with a most raging 
thirst, during the whole five and twenty days the flux 
was upon us in the camp ; otherwise what my brother 


MY UNCLE TOLY. 


hi 


calls the radical moisture, must, as I conceive it, in- 
evitably have got the better. — My father drew in his 
lungs top full of air, and looking up, blew it forth 
again, as slowly as he possibly could — 

It was heaven’s mercy to us, continued my uncle 
Toby, which put it into the corporal’s head to maintain 
that due contention betwixt the radical heat and the 
radical moisture, by re-inforcing the fever, as he did 
all along, with hot wine and spices. 

— Well, — said my father, with a full aspiration, and 
pausing awhile after the word — Was I judge, and the 
laws of the country which made me one permitted it, 
I would condemn some of the worst malefactors, pro- 
vided they had had their clergy Yorick, foreseeing 

the sentence was likely to end with no sort of mercy, 
laid his hand upon my father’s breast, and begged he 
would respite it for a few minutes, till he had asked 
the corporal a question. — Prithee, Trim, said Yorick, 
without staying for my father’s leave, — tell us honestly 
— what is thy opinion concerning this self-same radical 
heat and radical moisture 1 
With humble submission to his honour’s better judg- 
ment, quoth the corporal, making a bow to my uncle 
Toby.— Speak thy opinion freely, corporal, said my 
uncle Toby. — The poor fellow is my servant, — not my 
slave, — added my uncle Toby, turning to my father. 

The corporal put his hat under his left arm, and 
with his stick hanging upon the wrist of it, by a black 
thong split into a tassel about the knot, he marched 
up to the ground where he had performed his catechism; 
then touching his under jaw with the thumb and 
fingers of his right hand before he opened his mouth, 
— he delivered his notion thus. 

Just as the corporal was humming to begin, in 
waddled Dr. Slop. 

The city of Limerick, the siege of which was begun 
under his Majesty King William himself, the year 
after I went into army — lies, an’ please your honours, 


XI2 


THE STORY OF 


in the middle of a devilish wet, swampy country. — 
Tis quite surrounded, said my uncle Toby, with the 
Shannon, and is, by its situation, one of the strongest 
fortified places in Ireland. 

I think this is a new fashion, quoth Dr. Slop, of 
beginning a medical lecture. — ’Tis all true, answered 
Trim. — Then I wish the faculty would follow the cut 
of it, said Yorick. — Tis all cut through, an’ please 
your reverence, said the corporal, with drains and bogs ; 
and besides, there was such a quantity of rain fell dur- 
ing the siege, the whole country was like a puddle, — 
’twas that, and nothing else, which brought on the flux, 
and which had liked to have killed bothhis honour and 
myself ; now there was no such thing, after the first 
ten days, continued the corporal, for a soldier to lie 
dry in his tent, without cutting a ditch round it, to 
draw off the water ; — nor was that enough, for those 
who could afford it, as his honour could, without 
setting fire every night to a pewter dish full of brandy, 
which took off the damp of the air, and made the in- 
side of the tent as warm as a stove. 

And what conclusion dost thou draw, corporal Trim, 
cried my father, from all these premises 1 

I infer, an’ please your worship, replied Trim, that 
the radical moisture is nothing in the world but ditch- 
water — and that the radical heat, of those who can go 
to the expense of it, is burnt brandy— and a dram of 
geneva— and give us but enough of it, with a pipe of 
tobacco, to give us spirits, and drive away the vapours 
— we know not what it is to fear death. 

I am at a loss. Captain Shandy, quoth Dr. Slop, to 
determine in which branch of learning your servant 
shines most, whether in physiology, or divinity. — Slop 
had not forgot Trim’s comment upon the sermon. 

It is but an hour ago, replied Yorick, since the cor- 
poral was examined in the latter, and passed muster 
with great honour. 

The radical heat and moisture, quoth Dr. Slop, 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


Ii3 

turning to my father, you must know, is the basis and 
foundation of our being, — as the root of a tree is the 
source and principle of its vegetation. — It is inherent 
in the seeds of all animals, and may be preserved 
sundry ways, but principally in my opinion by con- 
substantials, impriments, and occludents. — Now this 
poor fellow, continued Dr. Slop, pointing to the corpo- 
ral, has had the misfortune to have heard some super- 
ficial-empiric discourse upon this nice point. — That 
he has, — said my father. — Very likely, said my uncle. 
I’m sure of it— quoth Yorick. 

Dr. Slop being called out, it gave my father an 
opportunity of going on with another chapter in the 
Tristra-pcedia. 

Five years with a bib under his chin ; 

A year and a half in learning to write his own name ; 

Seven long years and more TvirTu-ing it, at Greek 
and Latin ; 

Four years at his probations and his negations ; — the 
fine statue still lying in the middle of the marble 
block, — and nothing done but his tools sharpened to 
hew it out l - — ’Tis a piteous delay ! — Was not the great 
Julius Scaliger within an ace of never getting his tools 
sharpened at all 1 — Forty-four years old was he before 
he could manage his Greek ; — and Peter Damianus, 
Lord Bishop of Ostia, as all the world knows, could 
not so much as read, when he was of man’s estate : — 
and Baldus himself, eminent as he turned out after, \ 
entered upon the law so late in life that everybody 
imagined lie intended to be an advocate in the other ) 
world. 

Yorick listened to my father with great attention ; 
there was a seasoning of wisdom unaccountably mixed 
up with his strangest whims ; and he had sometimes 
such illuminations in the darkest of his eclipses as 
almost atoned for them. 

I am convinced, Yorick, continued my father, half 
reading and half discoursing, that there is a nortli- 

8 


n8 


THE STORY OF 


west passage to the intellectual world ; and that the 
soul of man has shorter ways of going to work, in 
furnishing itself with knowledge and instruction, than 
we generally take with it. — But, alack ! all fields have 
not a river or a spring running beside them every 
child, Yorick, has not a parent to point it out. 

— The whole entirely depends, added my father, in a 
low voice, upon the auxiliary verbs , Mr. Yorick. 

Now the use of the Auxiliaries is at once to set the 
soul a-going by herself upon the materials as they are 
brought her ; and, by the versability of this great 
engine, round which they are twisted, to open new 
tracts of enquiry, and make every idea engender 
millions. 

You excite my curiosity greatly, said Yorick. 

For my own part, quoth my uncle Toby, I have 
given it up. . . .The Danes, an’ please your honour, quoth 
the corporal, who were on _ the left at the siege of 
Limerick, were all auxiliaries.... And very good ones, 
said my uncle Toby.... And your honour roul’d with 
them — captains with captains — very well, said the 
corporal.... But the auxiliaries, Trim, my brother is 
talking about, answered my uncle Toby, I conceive to 
be different things. — 

My father took a single turn across the room, then 
sat down and finished the chapter. 

The verbs auxiliary we are concerned in here, con- 
tinued my father, are am ; was ; have ; had ; do ; 
did ; make ; made ; suffer ; shall ; should ; will ; 
would ; can ; could ; owe ; ought ; used ; or is wont. 
—And these varied with tenses, present, past, future, 
conjugated with the verb see — or with these questions 
added to them ; — Is it ] was it ] will it be ] would it 
be ] may it be ] might it be ] And these again put 
negatively, is it not ] was it not ] ought it not ] — Or 
affirmatively,— it is ; it was ; it ought to be. — Or 
chronologically, — has it been always] lately] how 
long ago]— Or hypothetically— if it was; if it was 


MY UNCLE TOLY. 


not? What would follow? — If the French should 
beat the English ? If the sun go out of the Zodiac ? 

Now by the right use and application of these, con- 
tinued my father, in which a child’s memory should 
be exercised, there is no one idea can enter his brain 
how barren soever, but a magazine of conceptions and 
conclusions may be drawn forth from it. — Did’st thou 
ever see a white bear ? cried my father, turning his 
head round to Trim, who stood at the back of his 
chair : — No, an’ please your honour, replied the cor- 
poral. — But thou could’st discourse about one, Trim, 
said my father, in case of need ? — How is it possible, 
brother, quoth my uncle Toby, if the corporal never 
saw one ?— ’Tis the fact I want, replied my father, — 
and the possibility of it, is as follows. 

A white bear ! Very well. Have I ever seen one ? 
Might I ever have seen one? Am I ever to see 
one ? Ought I ever to have seen one ? Or can I ever 
see one ? 

Would I had seen a white bear ? (for how can I 
imagine it ?) 

If I should see a white bear, what should I say? If 
I should never see a white bear, what then ? 

If I never have, can, must, or shall see a white bear 
alive ; have I ever seen the skin of one ? Did I ever 
see one painted ?— described ? Have I never dreamed 
of one? 

Did my father, mother, uncle, aunt, brothers or 
sisters, ever see a white bear? What would they 
give? How would they behave? How would the 
white bear have behaved ? Is he wild ? tame ? 
terrible? rough? smooth? 

— Is the white bear worth seeing ? — 

Is there no sin in it ? 

— Is it better than a black one ? — 

When my father had danced his white bear back- 
wards and forwards through half a dozen pages, 
he closed the book for good an’ all— and in a kind of 

8—2 


THE STOUT OF 


.x6 

triumph redelivered it into Trim’s hand with a nod 
to lay it upon the ’scrutoire where he found it. — 
Tristram, said he, shall be made to conjugate every 
word in the dictionary, backwards and forwards 
the same way ; — every word, Yorick, by this means, 
you see, is converted into a thesis or an hypothesis ; 
— every thesis and hypothesis have an offspring of 
propositions and each proposition has its own 
consequences and conclusions ; every one of which 
leads the mind on again into fresh tracks of inquiries 
and doubtings. — The force of this engine, added my 
father, is incredible, in opening a child’s head. — ’Tis 
enougn, brother Shandy, cried my uncle Toby, to 
burst it into a thousand splinters. 

There are a thousand resolutions, sir, both in church 
and state, as well as in matters, madam, of a more 
private concern ; — which, though they have carried all 
the appearance in the world of being taken, and 
entered upon in a hasty, hair-brained, and unadvised 
manner, were, notwithstanding this, weighed, poised, 
and perpended— argued upon — canvassed through — 
entered into, and examined on all sides with so much 
coolness, that the goddess of coolness herself (I do 
not take upon me to prove her existence) could neither 
have wished it, nor done it better. 

Of the number of these was my father’s resolution 
of putting me into breeches ; which, though deter- 
mined at once, in a kind of huff, and a defiance of all 
mankind, had, nevertheless, been pro’d and con’d, and 
judicially talked over betwixt him and my mother 
about a month before, in two several beds of justice, 
which my father had held for that purpose. 

We should begin, said my father, turning himself 
half round in bed, and shifting his pillow a little 
towards my mothers, as he opened the debate— we 
should begin to think, Mrs. Shandy, of putting this 
boy into breeches. — 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


117 

We should so — said my mother.— We defer it, my 
dear, quoth my father, shamefully. 

I think we do, Mr. Shandy— said my mother. 

—Not but the child looks extremely well, said my 
father, in his vests and tunics. — 

He does look very well in them, — replied my 
mother. — 

And for that reason it would be almost a sin, 
added my father, to take him out of ’em. 

It would so— said my mother :— But indeed he is 
growing a very tall lad — rejoined my father. 

He is very tall for his age, indeed— said my 
mother. 

I can not (making two syllables of it) imagine, 
quoth my father, who the deuce he takes after. 

I cannot conceive, for my life— said my mother. 

Humph ! — said my father. 

(The dialogue ceased for a moment.) 

I am very short myself — continued my father, 
gravely. 

You are very short, Mr. Shandy,— said my mother. 

Humph ! quoth my father to himself, a second 
time : in muttering which, he plucked his pillow a 
little further from my mother’s — and turning about 
again, there was end of the debate for three minutes 
and a half. 

When he gets these breeches made, cried my father, 
in a higher tone, he’ll look like a beast in ’em. 

He will be very awkward in them at first, replied 
my mother. 

And ’twill be lucky, if that’s the worst on’t, added 
my father. 

It will be very lucky, answered my mother. 

I suppose, replied my father, — making some pause 
first— he’ll be exactly like other people’s children. 

Exactly, said my mother. — 

Though I should be sorry for that, added my father: 
and so the debate stopped again. 


THE STOEY OF 


118 

They should be of leather, said my father, turning 
him about again. — 

They will last him, said my mother, the longest. 

But he can have no linings to ’em, replied my 
father. — 

He cannot, said my mother. 

’Twere better to have them of fustian, quoth my 
father. 

Nothing can be better, quoth my mother. < 

— Except dimity— replied my father : — ’Tis best of 
all — replied my mother. 

One must not give him his death, however — inter- 
rupted my father. 

By no means, said my mother : — and so the dia- 
logue stood still again. 

I am resolved, however, quoth my father, breaking 
silence the fourth time, he shall have no pockets 
in them. . 

There is no occasion for any, said my mother. 

I mean in his coat and waistcoat,— cried my father. 

I mean so too — replied my mother. 

Though if he gets a gig or a top — poor souls ! it 
is a crown and a sceptre to them — they should have 
where to secure it. 

Order it as you please, Mr. Shandy, replied my 
mother. 

But don’t you think it right 1 added my father, 
pressing the point home to her. 

Perfectly, said my mother, if it pleases you, Mr. 
Shandy. 

There’s for you ! cried my father, losing temper — 
Pleases me ! — You never will distinguish, Mrs. 
Shandy, nor shall I ever teach you to do it, betwixt a 
point of pleasure and a point of convenience. — This 
was on the Sunday night ; and further this chapter 
sayeth not. 

After my father had debated the affair of the 
breeches with my mother, he consulted Albertus 


MY UNCLE TOLY. 


119 

Rubenius upon it ; and Albertus Rubenius used my 
father ten times worse in the consultation (if possible) 
than even my father had used my mother : for as 
Rubenius had wrote a quarto express, De re Vestiaria 
Veterum — it was Rubenius’s business to have given 
my father some lights. On the contrary, my father 
might as well have thought of extracting the seven 
cardinal virtues out of a long beard, as of extracting 
a single word out of Rubenius upon the subject. 

Upon every other article of ancient dress, Rubenius 
was very communicative to my father gave him a 
full and satisfactory account of 

The Toga, or loose gown. 

The Chlamys. 

The Ephod. 

The Tunica, or jacket. 

The Synthesis. 

The Paenula. 

The Lacema, with its Cucullus. 

— But what are all these to the breeches 1 said my 
father. 

Rubenius threw him down, upon the counter, all 
kinds of shoes which had been in fashion with the 
Romans : — 

There was, The open shoe. 

The close shoe. 

The slip shoe. 

The wooden shoe. 

The sock. 

The buskin. 

And The military shoe, with hob nails in it, 
which Juvenal takes notice of. 

There were, The clogs. 

The pattens. 

The pantoufles. 

The brogues. 

The sandals, with latchets to them, 


120 


THE STORY OF 


There was, The felt shoe. 

The linen shoe. 

The laced shoe. 

The braided shoe. 

The calceus insisus. 

And The calceus rostratus. 

Rubenius showed my father how well they all 
fitted, — in what manner they laced on, — with what 
points, straps, thongs, latchets, ribands, jaggs, and 
ends. — 

— But I want to be informed about the breeches, 
said my father. 

Albertus Rubenius informed my father that the 
Romans manufactured stuffs of various fabrics : — 
some plain, — some striped, — others diapered through- 
out the whole contexture of the wool with silk and 
gold — That linen did not begin to be in common use 
till towards the declension of the empire, when the 
Egyptians, coming to settle amongst them, brought it 
into vogue. 

That persons of quality and fortune distinguished 
themselves by the fineness and whiteness of their 
clothes ; which colour (next to purple, which was 
appropriated to the great offices) they most affected, 
and wore on their birth-days and public rejoicings. — 
that it appeared, from the best historians of those 
times, that they frequently sent their clothes to the 
fuller, to be cleaned and whitened : — but that the in- 
ferior people, to avoid that expense, generally wore 
brown clothes, and of a something coarser texture, — 
till towards the beginning of Augustus’s reign, when 
the slave dressed like his master, and almost every 
distinction of habiliment was lost, but the Lotus 
clavus. 

And what was the Latus clavus ? said my father. 

Rubenius told him that the point was still litigating 
amongst the learned : — that Egnatius, Sigonius, Bos- 
sius Ticinensis, Baysius, Budseus, Salmasius, Lipsius 
Lazius, Isaac Causabon, and Joseph Scaliger, all 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


121 


differed from each other, — and he from them : that 
some took it to be the button —some the coat itself 
— others only the colour of it : — that the great Baysius, 
in his “ Wardrobe of the Ancients,” chap. 12, — honestly 
said he knew not what it was, — whether a tibula, — a 
stud, — a button, — a loop, — a buckle,— or clasps and 
keepers. — 

My father lost the horse, but not the saddle. — They 
are hooks and eyes, said my father— and with hooks 
and eyes he ordered my breeches to be made. 




CHAPTER IX 

THE STORY OF LE FEVER. 

'OU see ’tis high time, said my father, ad- 
dressing himself equally to my uncle 
Toby and Yorick, to take this young crea- 
ture out of these women’s hands, and put 
him into those of a private governor. Marcus Anto- 
nius provided fourteen governors all at once to super- 
intend his son Commodus’s education, — and in six 
weeks he cashiered five of them. 

I will have him, continued my father, cheerful, 
facets, jovial ; at the same time prudent, attentive to 
business, vigilant, acute, argute, inventive, quick in 
resolving doubts and speculative questions ; — he shall 
be wise and judicious, and learned. — And why not 
humble, and moderate, and gentle tempered, and good 1 
said Yorick. — And why not, cried my uncle Toby, free, 
and generous, and bountiful, and brave 1 — He shall, 
my dear Toby, replied my father, getting up and 
shaking him by his hand.— Then, brother Shandy, 
answered my uncle Toby, raising himself off the chair, 
and laying down his pipe to take hold of my father’s 
other hand, — I humbly beg I may recommend poor Le 
Fever’s son to you ; — a tear of joy of the first water 
sparkled in my uncle Toby’s eye, and another, the 
fellow to it, in the corporal’s, as the proposition was 
made you will see why when you read Le Fever’s 
story. 



MY UNCLE TOBY. 


123 

It was some time in the summer of that year in 
which Dendermond was taken by the allies, — which 
was about seven years before my father came into the 
country, — and about as many after the time that my 
uncle Toby and Trim had privately decamped from my 
father’s house in town, in order to lay some of the 
finest sieges to some of the finest fortified cities in Eu- 
rope — when my uncle Toby was one evening getting 
his supper, with Trim sitting behind him at a small 
sideboard, — I say, sitting — for in consideration of the 
corporal’s lame knee (which sometimes gave him exqui- 
site pain) — when my uncle Toby dined or supped alone, 
he would never suffer the corporal to stand ; and the poor 
fellow’s veneration for his master was such, that, with 
a proper artillery, my uncle Toby could have taken 
Dendermond itself with less trouble than he was able 
to gain this point over him ; for many a time when 
my uncle Toby supposed the corporal’s leg was at 
rest, he would look back, and detect him standing be- 
hind him with the most dutiful respect : this bred 
more little squabbles betwixt them, than all other 
causes for five-and-twenty years together ; but this 
is neither here nor there — why do I mention it h Ask 
my pen, — it governs me, — I govern not it. 

He was one evening sitting thus at his supper, when 
the landlord of a little inn in the village came into 
the parlour with an empty phial in his hand, to beg a 
glass or two of sack ; ’Tis for a poor gentleman, I think, 
of the army, said the landlord, who has been taken ill 
at my house four days ago, and has never held up his 
head' since, or had a desire to taste anything, till just 
now, that he has a fancy for a glass of sack and a thin 
toast— I think, says he, taking his hand from his fore- 
head, it would comfort me. 

If I could neither beg, borrow, or buy such a thing, 
—added the landlord,— I would almost steal it for the 
poor gentleman, he is so ill. I hope in God he will 
still mend, continued he, — we are all of us concerned 
for him. 


THE STORY OF 


124 

Thou art a good-natured soul, I will answer for 
thee, cried my uncle Toby ; and thou shalt drink the 
poor gentleman’s health in a glass of sack thyself, — 
and take a couple of bottles with my service, and tell 
him he is heartily welcome to them, and to a dozen 
more if they will do him good. 

Though I am persuaded, said my uncle Toby, as the 
landlord shut the door, he is a very compassionate 
fellow, — Trim, — yet I cannot help entertaining a high 
opinion of his guest too ; there must be something 
more than common in him, that in so short a time 
should win so much upon the affections of his host. — 
And of his whole family, added the corporal, for they 
are all concerned for him. — Step after him, said my 
uncle Toby, — do Trim, — and ask if he knows his 
name. 

— I have quite forgot it, truly, said the landlord, 
coming back into the parlour with the corporal, — but I 
can ask his son again. Has he a son with him then 1 
said my uncle Toby. A boy, replied the landlord, of 
about eleven or twelve years of age ; — but the poor 
creature has tasted almost as little as his father ; he 
does nothing but mourn and lament for him night and 
day : — He has not stirred from the bedside these two 
days. 

My uncle Toby laid down his knife and fork, and 
thrust his plate from before him, as the landlord gave 
him the account ; and Trim, without being ordered, 
took away without saying one word, and in a few 
minutes after brought him his pipe and tobacco. 

Stay in the room a little, said my uncle Toby. 

Trim ! - said my uncle Toby, after he lighted his 
pipe, and smoked about a dozen whiffs. Trim came in 
front of his master and made his bow ; — my uncle 
Toby smoked on, and said no more. — Corporal ! said 
my uncle Toby— the corporal made his bow. — My 
uncle Toby proceeded no further, but finished his 
pipe. 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


Trim ! said my uncle Toby, I have a project in my 
head, as it is a bad night, of wrapping myself up warm 
in my roquelaure, and paying a visit to this poor 
gentleman. — Your honour’s roquelaure, replied the 
corporal, has not once been had on since the night 
before your honour received your wound, when we 
mounted guard in the trenches before the gate of St. 
Nicholas ; — and besides it is so cold and rainy a night, 
that what with the roquelaure, and what with the 
weather, ’twill be enough to give your honour your 
death, and bring on your honour’s torment in your 
groin. I fear so, replied my uncle Toby ; but I am 
not at rest in my mind, Trim, since the account the 
landlord has given me. I wish I had not known so 
much of this affair, added my uncle Toby, — or that I 
had known more of it : — How shall we manage it 1 
Leave it, an’t please your honour, to me, quoth the 
corporal I’ll take my hat and stick, and go to the 
house and reconnoitre, and act accordingly ; and I will 
bring your honour a full account in an hour. Thou 
shalt go, Trim, said my uncle Toby, and here’s a shil- 
ling for thee to drink with his servant. — I shall get it 
all out of him, said the corporal, shutting the door. 

My uncle Toby filled his second pipe ; and had it 
not been, that he now and then wandered from the 
point, with considering whether it was not full as well 
to have the curtain of the tenaille a straight line, as a 
crooked one, — he might be said to have thought of 
nothing else but poor Le Fever and his boy the whole 
time he smoked it. 

It was not till my uncle Toby had knocked the ashes 
out of his third pipe, that corporal Trim returned from 
the inn, and gave him the following account. 

I despaired at first, said the corporal, of being able 
to bring back your honour any kind of intelligence 
concerning the poor sick lieutenant. — Is he in the army 
then said my uncle Toby. — He is, said the corporal. 
— And in what regiment ? said my uncle Toby. — I’ll 


126 


THE STORY OF 


tell your honour, replied the corporal, everything 
straight forwards, as I learnt it. — Then, Trim, 111 fill 
another pipe, said my uncle Toby, and not interrupt 
thee till thou hast done ; so sit down at thy ease, Trim, 
in the window-seat, and begin thy story again. The 
corporal made his old bow, which generally spoke as 
plain as a bow could speak it— Your honour is good : — 
and having done that, he sat down, as he was ordered, 
—and began the story to my uncle Toby over again in 
pretty near the same words. 

I despaired at first, said the corporal, of being able 
to bring back any intelligence to your honour about 
the lieutenant and his son ; for when I asked where 
his servant was, from whom I made myself sure of 
knowing everything which was proper to be asked — 
That’s a right distinction, Trim, said my uncle Toby — 
I was answered, an’ please your honour, that he had 
no servant with him ; — that he had come to the inn 
with hired horses, which, upon finding himself unable 
to proceed (to join, I suppose the regiment) he had dis- 
missed the morning after he came. — If I get better, 
my dear, said he, as he gave his purse to his son to 
pay the man, we can hire horses from hence. — But 
alas ! the poor gentleman will never get from hence, 
said the landlady to me, — for I heard the death-watch 
all night long and when he dies, the youth, his son, 
will certainly die with him ; for he is broken-hearted 
already. 

I was hearing this account, continued the corporal, 
when the youth came into the kitchen, to order the 
thin toast the landlord spoke of ;— but I will do it for 
my father myself, said the youth. — Pray let me save 
you the trouble, young gentleman, said I, taking up a 
fork for the purpose, and offering him my chair to sit 
down upon by the fire, whilst I did it. — I believe, 
sir, said he, very modestly, I can please him best 
myself.— I am sure, said I, his honour will not like 
the toast the worse for being toasted by an old soldier. 


my uncle toby. 127 

— The youtli took hold of my hand, and instantly 
burst into tears. — Poor youth ! said my uncle Toby, 
he has been bred up from an infant in the army, and 
the name of a soldier, Trim, sounded in his ears like 
the name of a friend ; — I wish I had him here. 

— I never in the longest march, said the corporal, 
had so great a mind to my dinner, as I had to cry with 
him for company : what could be the matter with me, 
an’ please your honour h Nothing in the world, Trim, 
said my uncle Toby, blowing his nose — but that thou 
art a good-natured fellow. 

When I gave him the toast, continued the corporal, 
I thought it was proper to tell him I was Captain 
Shandy’s servant, and that your honour (though a 
stranger) was extremely concerned for his father 
and that if there was anything in your house or cellar 
— (and thou might’st have added my purse too, said 
my uncle Toby) — he was heartily welcome to it : — he 
made a very low bow (which was meant to your honour) 
but no answer, — for his heart was full — so he went 
upstairs w T ith the toast : — I warrant you, my dear, 
said I, as I opened the kitchen door, your father will 
be well again. — Mr. Yorick’s curate was smoking a 
pipe by the kitchen fire, — but said not a word good or 
bad to comfort the youth. — I thought it wrong, added 
the corporal. — I think so too, said my uncle Toby. 

When the lieutenant had taken his glass of sack 
and toast, he felt himself a little revived, and sent 
down into the kitchen to let me know, that in about 
ten minutes he should be glad if I would step upstairs. 
— I believe, said the landlord, he is going to say his 
prayers, — for there was a book laid upon the chair by 
his bedside, and as I shut the door, I saw his son take 
up a cushion. 

I thought, said the curate, that you gentlemen of 
the army, Mr. Trim, never said your prayers at all. 
— I heard the poor gentleman say his prayers last 
night, said the landlady, very devoutly, and with 


128 


the stoeT of 


my own ears, or I could not have believed it. — Are 
you sure of it 1 replied the curate. — A soldier, an’ 

' please your reverence, said I, prays as often (of his 
own accord) as a parson ; — and when he is fighting for 
his king, and for his own life, and for his honour too, 
he has the most reason to pray to God of any one in 
b the whole world. — ’Twas well said of thee, Trim, said 
my uncle Toby. — But when a soldier, said I, an’ please 
your reverence, has been standing for twelve hours 
together in the trenches, up to his knees in cold water, 
— or engaged, said I, for months together in long and 
dangerous marches harassed, perhaps, in his rear 
to-day ; — harassing others to-morrow ; — detached here ; 
— countermanded there ; — resting this night out upon 
his arms ; — beat up in his shirt the next ; — benumbed 
in his joints ; — perhaps without straw in his tent to 
kneel on ; — must say his prayers how and when he 
can. — I believe, said I, — for I was piqued, quoth the 
corporal, for the reputation of the army, — I believe, 
an’ please your reverence, said I, that when a soldier 
! gets time to pray, — he prays as heartily as a parson, — 
' though not with all his fuss and hypocrisy. — Thou 
should’ st not have said that, Trim, said my uncle Toby, 
, — for God only knows who is a hypocrite, and who is 
not : — At the great and general review of us all, 
corporal, at the day of judgment (and not till then) 
it will be seen who has done their duties in this world, 
and who has not ; and we shall be advanced, Trim, 
accordingly. — I hope we shall, said Trim.— It is in the 
Scripture, said my uncle Toby ; and I will show it 
thee to-morrow : — In the meantime we may depend 
upon it, Trim, for our comfort, said my uncle Toby, 
that God Almighty is so good and just a governor of 
the world, that if we have but done our duties in it, 
it will never be inquired into, whether we have done 
them in a red coat or a black one. — I hope not ; said 
the corporal.— But go on, Trim, said my uncle Toby, 
with thy story. 


MY UNCLE TOBY. i 2 g 

When I went up, continued the corporal, into the 
lieutenant’s room, which I did not do till the expiration 
of the ten minutes, he was lying in his bed with his head 
taised upon his hand, with his elbow upon the pillow, 
and a clean white cambric handkerchief beside it : — 
The youth was just stooping down to take up the 
cushion, upon which I supposed he had been kneeling, 
— the book was laid upon the bed, — and as he rose, in 
taking up the cushion with one hand, he reached out 
his other to take it away at the same time. — -Let it 
remain there, my dear, said the lieutenant. 

He did not offer to speak to me, till I had walked 
up close to his bedside : — If you are Captain Shandy’s 
servant, said he, you must present my thanks to your 
master, with my little boy’s thanks along with them, 
for his courtesy to me ; — if he was of Leven’s— said 
the lieutenant. — I told him your honour was — Then, 
said he, I served three campaigns with him in Flanders, 
and remember him, — but ’tis most likely, as I had not 
the honour of any acquaintance with him, that he 
knows nothing of me. You will tell him, however, 
that the person his good nature has laid under obli- 
gations to him, is one Le F ever, a lieutenant in Angus’s 
— but he knows me not, — said he, a second time, 
musing ; possibly he may my story — added he — pray 
tell the captain, I was the ensign at Breda, whose wife 
was most unfortunately killed with a musket shot, as 
she lay in my arms in my tent. — I remember the story, 
an’t please your honour, said I, very well.— Do you so 1 ? 
said he, wiping his eyes with his handkerchief, — then 
well may I. — In saying this he drew a little ring out 
of his bosom, which seemed tied with a black ribband 
about his neck, and kissed it twice. — Here, Billy, said 
he, — the boy flew across the room to the bedside, — and 
falling down upon his knee, took the ring in his hand, 
and kissed it too — then kissed his father, and sat down 
upon the bed and wept. 


9 


TILE STORY OF 


130 

I wish, said my uncle Toby, with a deep sigh — I 
wish, Trim, I was asleep. 

Your honour, replied the corporal, is too much con- 
cerned ; — shall I pour your honour out a glass of sack 
to your pipe 1 — Do, Trim, said my uncle Toby. 

I remember, said my uncle Toby, sighing again, the 
story of the ensign and his wife, with a circumstance 
his modesty omitted : — and particularly well that he, 
as well as she, upon some account or other (I forgot 
what) was universally pitied by the whole regiment ; 
— but finish the story thou art upon : — ’tis finished 
already, said the corporal — for I could stay no longer 
— so wished his honour a good night; young Le Fever 
rose from off the bed, and saw me to the bottom of 
the stairs ; and as we went down together, told me, 
they had come from Ireland, and were on their route 
to join the regiment in Flanders. — But alas ! said the 
corporal — the lieutenant’s last day’s march is over. — 
Then what is to become of his poor boy 1 cried my 
uncle Toby. 

It was to my uncle Toby’s eternal honour— though 
I tell it only for the sake of those who, when cooped 
in betwixt a natural and positive law, know not for 
their souls which way in the world to turn themselves 
— that notwithstanding .my uncle Toby was warmly 
engaged at that time in carrying on the siege of 
Dendermond, parallel with the allies, who pressed 
theirs on so vigorously, that they scarce allowed him 
time to get his dinner — that nevertheless he gave up 
Dendermond, though he had already made a lodgment 
upon the counterscarp ; — and bent his whole thoughts 
towards the private distress at the inn ; and, except 
that he ordered the garden gate to be bolted up, by 
which he might be said to have turned the siege of 
Dendermond into a blockade, — he left Dendermond 
to itself — to be relieved or not by the French king, as 
the French king thought good ; and only considered 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


* 3 * 

how he himself should relieve the poor lieutenant and 
his son. 

— That kind Being, who is a friend to the friendless, 
shall recompense thee for this. 

Thou has left this matter short, said my uncle Toby, 
to the corporal, as he was putting him to bed — and I 
will tell thee in what, Trim. — In the first place, when 
thou mad’st an offer of my services to Le Fever — as 
sickness and travelling are both expensive, and thou 
knowest he was but a poor lieutenant, with a son to 
subsist as well as himself, out of his pay — that thou 
didst not make an offer to him of my purse ; because, 
had he stood in need, thou knowest, Trim, he had been 
as welcome to it as myself. — Your honour knows, said 
the corporal, I had no orders. True, quoth my uncle 
Toby — thou didst very right, Trim, as a soldier— but 
certainly very wrong as a man. 

In the second place, for which, indeed, thou hast the 
same excuse, continued my uncle Toby — when thou 
offeredst him whatever was in my house— thou shouldst 
have offered him my house too : — A sick brother officer 
should have the best quarters, Trim ; and if we had 
him with us— we could tend and look to him: — Thou art 
an excellent nurse thyself, Trim — and what with thy 
care of him, and the old woman’s, and his boy’s, and 
mine together, we might recruit him again at once, and 
set him upon his legs. — 

— In a fortnight or three weeks, added my uncle Toby, 
smiling — he might march. — He will never march, an’ 
please your honour, in this world, said the corporal : — 
He will march, said my uncle Toby, rising up from the 
side of the bed, with one shoe off : — An’ please your 
honour, said the corporal, he will never march but to 
his grave : — He shall march, cried my uncle Toby, 
marching the foot which had a shoe on, though with- 
out advancing an.inch — he shall march to his regiment. 
— He cannot stand it, said the corporal He shall be 
supported, said my uncle Toby ;— He’ll drop at last, 


THE STORY OF 


132 

said the corporal, and what will become of his boy 'l 
—He shall not drop, said my uncle Toby, firmly. — 
A-well-o’-day, — do what we can for him, said Trim, 
maintaining his point, — the poor soul will die : — He 
shall not die, by G-y-y, cried my uncle Toby. 

— The accusing spirit which flew up to heaven’s chan- 
cery with the oath, blushed as he gave it in — and the 
recording angel as he wrote it down, dropped a tear 
upon the word, and blotted it out for ever. 

My uncle Toby went to his bureau — put his purse 
into his breeches pocket, and having ordered the cor- 
poral to go early in the morning for a physician— he 
went to bed, and fell asleep. 

The sun looked bright the morning after, to every 
eye in the village but Le Fever’s and his afflicted son’s ; 
the hand of death pressed heavy upon his eyelids— and 
hardly could the wheel at the cistern turn round its 
circle, — when my uncle Toby, who had rose up an 
hour before his wonted time, entered the lieutenant’s 
room, and without preface or apology, sat himself 
down upon the chair by the bedside, and, independ- 
ently of all modes and customs, opened the curtain in 
the manner an old friend and brother officer would 
have done it, and asked him how he did — how he had 
rested in the night — what was his complaint — where 
was his pain — and what he could do to help him : — and, 
without giving him time to answer any one of the 
inquiries, went on and told him of the little plan which 
he had been concerting with the corporal the night 
before for him. 

You shall go home directly, Le Fever, said my uncle 
Toby, to my house,— and we’ll send for a doctor to see 
what’s the matter — and we’ll have an apothecary— and 
the corporal shall be your nurse ; — and I’ll be your 
servant, Le Fever. 

There was a frankness in my uncle Toby — not the 
effect of familiarity— but the cause of it— which let 
you at once into his soul, and showed you the good- 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


1 33 

ness of his nature ; to this, there was something in his 
looks, and voice, and manner, superadded, which eter- 
nally beckoned to the unfortunate to come and take 
shelter under him : so that before my uncle Toby had 
half finished the kind offers he was making to the 
father, had the son insensibly pressed up close to his 
knees, and had taken hold of the breast of his coat, 
and was pulling it towards him. — The blood and spirits 
of Le Fevre, which were waxing cold and slow within 
him, and were retreating to their last citadel, the heart 
— rallied back, — the film forsook his eyes for a moment 
— he looked up wistfully in my uncle Toby’s face — then 
cast a look upon his boy — and that ligament, fine as it 
was — was never broken. 

Nature instantly ebbed again— the film returned to 
its place — the pulse fluttered— stopped — went on — 
throbbed — stopped again— moved— stopped— shall I 
go on % — No. 




CHAPTER X. 

MY UNCLE TOBY’S FORTIFICATIONS. 

EAYE we then the breeches in the tailor’s 
hands, with my father standing over him 
I with his cane, reading him as he sat at 
I work a lecture upon the latus clavus , and 

{ minting to the precise part of the waistband where 
le was determined to have it sewed on. 

Leave we my mother — (truest of all the Poco- 
curantes of her sex !) — careless about it, as about 
everything else in the world which concerned her ; 
that is, — indifferent whether it was done this way or 
that, — provided it was but done at all. 

Leave we Slop likewise. 

Let us leave, if possible, myself: — but, ’tis impossi- 
ble ; — I must go along with you to the end of the 
work. 

If the reader has not a clear conception of the 
rood and a half of ground which lay at the bottom, 
of my uncle Toby’s kitchen garden, and which was 
the scene of so many of his delicious hours — the fault 
is not in me— but in his imagination : for I am sure 
I gave him so minute a description, I was almost 
ashamed of it. 

My uncle Toby came down, as the reader has been 



MY UNCLE TOBY. 


135 

informed, with plans along with him of almost every 
fortified town in Italy and Flanders ; so let the Duke 
of Marlborough, or the allies, have set down before 
what town they pleased, my uncle Toby was prepared 
for them. 

His way, which was the simplest one in the world, 
was this ; as soon as ever a town was invested — (but 
sooner when the design was known) — to take the plan 
of it (let it be what town it would) and enlarge it 
upon a scale to the exact size of his bowling green ; 
upon the surface of which, by means of a large roll 
of packthread and a number of small piquets driven 
into the ground, at the several angles and redans, he 
transferred the lines from his paper ; then taking the 
profile of the place, with its works, to determine the 
depths and slopes of the ditches, the talus of the 
glacis, and the precise height of the several banquets, 
parapets, &c., he set the corporal to work, and sweetly 
went it on : — The nature of the soil — the nature of 
the work itself — and above all, the good nature of 
my uncle Toby sitting by from morning to night, and 
chatting kindly with the corporal upon past-done 
deeds — left Labour little else but the ceremony of the 
name. 

When the place was finished in this manner, and 
put into a proper posture of defence — it was invested 
— and my uncle Toby and the corporal began to run 
their first parallel. I beg I may not be interrupted 
in my story, by being told That the first parallel 
should be at least three hundred toises distant from 
the main body of the place, and that I have not left 
a single inch for it ; for my uncle Toby took the 
liberty of encroaching upon his kitchen garden, for 
the sake of enlarging his works on the bowling-green, 
and for that reason generally ran his first and second 
parallels betwixt two rows of his cabbages and his 
cauliflowers. 

When the town, with its works, was finished, my 


THE STORY OF 


136 

uncle Toby and the corporal began to run their first 
parallel, not at random, or anyhow, but from the 
same points and distances the allies had begun to 
run theirs ; and regulating their approaches and at- 
tacks, by the accounts my uncle Toby received from 
the daily papers, they went on, during the whole 
siege, step by step with the allies. 

When the Duke of Marlborough made a lodgment, 
my uncle Toby made a lodgment too — And when the 
face of a bastion was battered down, or a defence 
ruined, the corporal took his mattock and did as 
much, and so on ; gaining ground, and making them- 
selves masters of the works one after another, till the 
town fell into their hands. 

To one who took pleasure in the happy state of 
others, there could not have been a greater sight in 
the world, than on a post-morning, in which a prac- 
ticable breach had been made by the Duke of Marl- 
borough in the main body of the place — to have 
stood behind the horn-beam hedge, and observed the 
spirit with which my uncle Toby, with Trim behind 
him, sallied forth ; the one with the Gazette in his 
hand — the other with a spade on his shoulder to exe- 
cute the contents. What an honest triumph in my 
uncle Toby’s looks as he marched up to the ramparts ! 
What intense pleasure swimming in his eye as he 
stood over the corporal, reading the paragraph ten 
times over to him as he was at work, lest, peradven- 
ture, he should make the breach an inch too wide — or 
leave it an inch too narrow. But when the chamade 
was beat, and the corporal helped my uncle up it, 
and followed with the colours in his hand, to fix them 
upon the ramparts — Heaven ! Earth ! Sea ! — but 
what avails apostrophes'? — with all your elements, 
wet or dry, ye never compounded so intoxicating a 
draught. 

In this track of happiness for many years, without 
one interruption to it, except now and then when the 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


137 

wind continued to blow due west for a week or ten 
days together, which- detained the Flanders mail, 
and kept them so long in torture — but still ; twas 
the torture of the happy — In this track, I say, did 
my uncle Toby and Trim move for many years, 
every year of which, and sometimes every month, 
from the invention of either one or the other of them, 
adding some new conceit or quirk of improvement to 
their operations, which always opened fresh springs 
of delight in carrying them on. 

_ The first year’s campaign was carried on from be- 
ginning to end in the plain and simple method I’ve 
related. 

In the second year, in which my uncle Toby took 
Liege and Ruremond, he thought he might afford the 
expense of four handsome draw-bridges, of two of which 
I have given an exact description in the former part 
of my work. 

At the latter end of the same year he added a 
couple of gates with portcullises: — these last were 
converted afterwards in orgues, as the better thing ; 
and during the winter of the same year, my uncle 
Toby, instead of a new suit of clothes, which he 
always had at Christmas, treated himself with a 
handsome sentry-box, to stand at the corner of the 
bowling-green, betwixt which point and the foot of 
the glacis there was left a little kind of an esplanade 
for him and the corporal to confer and hold councils 
of war upon. 

— The sentry-box was in case of rain. 

All these were painted white three times over the 
ensuing spring, which enabled my uncle Toby to take 
the field with great splendour. 

My father would often say to Yorick, that if any 
mortal in the whole universe had done such a thing, 
except his brother Toby, it would have been looked 
upon by the world as one of the most refined satires 
upon the parade and prancing manner in which 


TUB STOBY OF 


133 

Louis XIV. from the beginning of the war, but par- 
ticularly that very year, had taken the field. — But ’tis 
not my brother Toby’s nature, kind soul ! my father 
would add, to insult any one. 

I must observe, that although in the first year’s 
campaign the word town is often mentioned — yet 
there was no town at that time within the polygon ; 
that addition was not made till the summer follow- 
ing the spring in which the bridges and sentry-box 
were painted, which was the third year of my uncle 
Toby’s campaigns, — when upon his taking Amberg, 
Bonn, and Khinberg, and Huy and Limbourg, one 
after another, a thought came into the corporal’s head, 
that to talk of taking so many towns, without one town 
to show for it, was a very nonsensical way of going to 
work ; and so proposed to my uncle Toby, that they 
should have a little model of a town built for them, to 
be run up together of slit deals, and then painted, and 
clapped within the interior polygon to serve for all. 

My uncle Toby felt the good of the project in- 
stantly, and instantly agreed to it, but with the addi- 
tion of two singular improvements, of which he was 
almost as proud, as if he had been the original in- 
ventor of the project itself. 

The one was ; to have the town built exactly in 
the style of those of which it was most likely to be 
the representative : — with great windows, and the 
gable ends of the houses facing the streets, &c., &c. — 
as those in Ghent and Bruges, and the rest of the 
towns in Brabant and Flanders. 

The other was, not to have the houses run up to- 
gether, as the corporal proposed, but to have every 
house independent, to hook on, or off, so as to form 
into the plan of whatever town they pleased. This 
was put directly into hand, and many and many a 
look of mutual congratulation was exchanged between 
my uncle Toby and the corporal, as the carpenter did 
the work. 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


It answered prodigiously the next summer — the 
town was a perfect Proteus — It was Landen, and 
Trerebach, and Santlivet, and Drusen, and Hagenau 
— and then it was Ostend and Menin, and Aeth and 
Dendermond. 

Surely never did any town act so many parts, as my 
uncle Toby’s town did. 

In the fourth year, my uncle Toby, thinking a town 
looked foolishly without a church, added a very fine 
one with a steeple. Trim was for having bells in it ; 
my uncle Toby said, the metal had better be cast into 
cannon. 

This led the way to the next campaign for half-a- 
dozen brass field-pieces — to be planted three and three 
on each side of my uncle Toby’s sentry-box ; and in a 
short time these ied the way for a train of somewhat 
larger — and so on — (as must always be the case in 
hobby- horsical affairs) from pieces of half an inch 
bore, till it came at last to my father’s jack-boots. 

The next year, which was that in which Lisle was 
besieged, and at the close of which both Ghent and 
Bruges fell into our hands — my uncle Toby was sadly 
put to it for proper ammunition ; I say proper ammu- 
nition, because his great artillery would not bear 
powder ; and ’twas well for the Shandy family they 
would not. For so full were the papers, from the begin- 
ning to the end of the siege, of the incessant firings 
kept up by the besiegers, and so heated was my uncle 
Toby’s imagination with the accounts of them, that 
he had infallibly shot away all his estate. 

Something therefore was wanting, as a succedaneum, 
especially in one or two of the more violent paroxysms 
of the siege, to keep up something like a continual 
firing in the imagination — and this something, the 
corporal, whose principal strength lay in invention, 
supplied by an entire new system of battering of his 
own, without which this had been objected to by mi- 


THE STORY OF 


140 

litary critics to the end of the world, as one of the 
great desiderata of my uncle Toby's .apparatus. 

With two or three other trinkets, small in themselves, 
but of great regard, which poor Tom, the corporal's 
unfortunate brother, had sent him over, with the 
account of his marriage with the Jew’s widow — there 
was 

A Montero cap and two Turkish tobacco-pipes. 

The Montero cap I shall describe by-and-bye. The 
Turkish tobacco-pipes had nothing particular in them, 
they were fitted up and ornamented as usual, with 
flexible tubes of Morocco leather and gold wire, and 
mounted at their ends, the one of them with ivory — 
the other with black ebony, tipped with silver. 

My father, who saw all things in lights different from 
the rest of the world, would say to the corporal, that 
he ought to look upon these two presents more as 
tokens of his brother’s nicety, than his affection. Tom 
did not care, Trim, he would say, to put on the cap, 
or to smoke in the tobacco-pipe of a Jew. God bless 
your honour, the corporal would say (giving a strong 
reason to the contrary) — how can that be 1 

The Montero cap was scarlet, of a superfine Spanish 
cloth, dyed in grain, and mounted all round with fur, 
except about four inches in the front, which was faced 
with a light blue, slightly embroidered, and seemed to 
have been the property of a Portuguese quarter-master, 
not of foot, but of horse, as the word denotes. 

The corporal was not a little proud of it, as well for 
its own sake, as the sake of the giver, so seldom or 
never put it on but upon gala days ; and yet never 
was a Montero cap put to so many uses ; for in all 
controverted points, whether military or culinary, pro- 
vided the corporal was sure he was in the right — it 
was either his oath, his wager, or his gift. 

'Twas his gift in the present case. 

I’ll be bound, said the corporal, speaking to himself, 
to give away my Montero cap to the first beggar who 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


141 

comes to the door if I do not manage this matter to 
his honour’s satisfaction. 

The completion was no further off than the very- 
next morning ; which was that of the storm of the 
counterscarp betwixt the Lower Deule, to the right, 
and the gate of St. Andrew — and on the left, between 
St. Magdalen’s and the river. 

As this was the most memorable attack in the whole 
war — the most gallant and obstinate on both sides — 
and I must add the most bloody too, for it cost the 
allies themselves that morning above eleven hundred 
men — my uncle Toby prepared himself for it with a 
more than ordinary solemnity. 

The eve which preceded, as my uncle Toby went to 
bed, he ordered his Eamallie wig, which had laid inside 
out for many years in the corner of an old campaigning 
trunk, which stood by his bedside, to be taken out and 
laid upon the lid of it, ready for the morning; and the 
very first thing he did in his shirt, when he had stepped 
out of bed, my uncle Toby, after he had turned the 
rough side outwards— put it on : — this done, he pro- 
ceeded next to his breeches, and having buttoned the 
waistband, he forthwith buckled on his sword and belt, 
and had got his sword half way in, when he considered 
he should want shaving, and that it would be very 
inconvenient doing it with his sword on— so took it 
off : — In essaying to put on his regimental coat and 
waistcoat, my uncle Toby found the same objection in 
his wig — so that went off too : So that what with one 
thing, and what with another, as always falls out when 
a man is in the most haste, ’twas ten o’clock, which 
was half an hour later than his usual time, before my 
uncle Toby sallied out. 

My uncle Toby had scarce turned the corner of his 
yew hedge, which separated his kitchen garden from 
his bowling-green, when he perceived the corporal had 
begun the attack without him. — 

Let me stop and give you a picture of the corporal’s 


THE STORY OF 


142 

apparatus ; and of the corporal himself in the height 
of this attack,- just as it struck my uncle Toby, as he 
turned towards the sentry-box. 

The corporal had slipped out about ten minutes 
before my uncle Toby, in order to fix his apparatus, 
and just give the enemy a shot or two before my uncle 
Toby came. 

He had drawn the six field-pieces for this end, all 
close up together in front of my uncle Toby’s sentry- 
box, leaving only an interval of about a yard and a 
half betwixt the three, on the right and left, for the 
convenience of charging, <kc. and the sake possibly of 
two batteries, which he might think double the honour 
of one. 

In the rear, and facing this opening, with his back to 
the door of the sentry-box, for fear of being flanked, had 
the corporal wisely taken his post. — He held the ivory 
pipe, appertaining to the battery on the right, betwixt 
the finger and thumb of _ his right hand — and the 
ebony pipe, tipped with silver, which appertained to 
the battery on the left, betwixt the finger and thumb 
of the other — and with his right knee fixed firm upon 
the ground, as if in the front rank of his platoon, was 
the corporal, with his Montero cap upon his head, 
furiously playing off his two cross batteries at the 
same time against the counterguard which faced the 
counterscarp, where the attack was to be made that 
morning. His first intention, as I said, was no more 
than giving the enemy a single puff or two ; but the 
pleasure of the puffs, as well as the puffing, had 
insensibly got hold of the corporal, and drawn him 
on from puff to puff, into the very height of the 
attack, by the time my uncle Toby joined him. 

’Twas well for my father, that my uncle Toby had 
not his will to make that day. 

My uncle Toby took the ivory pipe out of the cor- 
poral’s hand — looked at it for half a minute, and 
returned it. 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


H3 

_ In less than two minutes my uncle Toby took the 
pipe from the corporal again, and raised it half way 
to his mouth — then hastily gave it back a second 
time. 

The corporal redoubled the attack — my uncle Toby 
smiled — then looked grave— then smiled for a moment 
— then looked serious for a long time. Give me hold 
of the ivory pipe, Trim, said my uncle Toby — my 
uncle Toby put it to his lips, drew it back directly, 
gave a peep over the horn-beam hedge ; never did my 
uncle Toby’s mouth water so much for a pipe in his 
life. My uncle Toby retired into the sentry-box with 
the pipe in his hand. 

There was, madam, in my uncle Toby a singleness 
of heart which misled him so far out of the little 
serpentine tracks in which things of this nature 
usually go on ; you can — you can have no conception of 
it : with this, there was a plainness and simplicity of 
thinking, with such an unmistrusting ignorance of the 
plies and foldings of the heart of woman — and so 
naked and defenceless did he stand before you (when 
a siege was out of his head) that you might have stood 
behind any one of your serpentine walks, and shot 
my uncle Toby ten times in a day through his liver, 
if nine times in a day, madam, had not served your 
purpose. 

With all this, madam — and what confounded every- 
thing as much on the other hand, my uncle Toby had 
thatf unparalleled modesty of nature I once told you 
of, and which, by-the-bye, stood eternal sentry upon 
his feelings, that you might as soon — But where am I 
going 1 these reflections crowd in upon me ten pages 
at least too soon, and take up that time which I ought 
to bestow upon facts. 

Amongst the many ill consequences of the treaty 
of Utrecht, it was within a point of giving my uncle 
Toby a surfeit of sieges ; and though he recovered his 
appetite afterwards, yet Calais itself left not a deeper 


THE STOET OF 


144 

scar in Mary’s heart, than Utrecht upon my 'uncle 
Toby’s. To the end of his life he never could hear 
Utrecht mentioned upon any account whatever, or so 
much as read an article of news extracted out of the 
Utrecht Gazette, without fetching a sigh, as if his 
heart would break in twain. 

My father, who was a great motive-monger, and 
consequently a very dangerous person for a man to sit 
by, either laughing or crying — for he generally knew 
your motive for doing both much better than you 
knew it yourself — would always console my uncle 
Toby upon these occasions in a way which showed 
plainly he imagined my uncle Toby grieved for 
nothing in the whole affair so much as the loss of his 
hobby-horse. Never mind, brother Toby, he would 
say — by God’s blessing we shall have another war 
break out again some of these days ; and when it 
does, the belligerent powers, if they would hang them- 
selves, cannot keep us out of play. I defy ’em, my 
dear Toby, he would add, to take countries without 
taking towns — or towns without sieges. 

My uncle Toby never took this backstroke of my 
father’s at his hobby-horse kindly. He thought the 
stroke ungenerous ; and the more so, because in strik- 
ing the horse he hit the rider too, and in the most 
dishonourable part a blow could fall ; so that upon 
these occasions, he always laid down his pipe upon 
the table with more fire to defend himself than com- 
mon. 

I told the reader, this time two years, that my 
uncle Toby was not eloquent ; and in the very same 
page gave an instance to the contrary : I repeat the 
observation, and a fact which contradicts it again. 
He was not eloquent — it was not easy to my uncle 
Toby to make long harangues— and he hated florid 
ones • but there were occasions where the stream 
overflowed the man, and ran so counter to its usual 
course, that in some parts my uncle Toby, for a time, 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


i4S 

was at least equal to Tertullus — but in others, in my 
opinion, infinitely above him. 

My father was so highly pleased with one of 
these apologetical orations of my uncle Toby’s, which 
he had delivered one evening before him and Yorick, 
that he wrote it down before he went to bed. I have 
had the good fortune to meet with it amongst my 
father’s papers, with here and there an insertion of 
his own, two crooks, thus [ ], and is endorsed, 

My brother Toby's justification of his own 'principles 
and conduct in wishing to continue the war. 

I may safely say, I have read over this apologetical 
oration of my uncle Toby’s a hundred times, and 
think it so fine a model of defence, and shows so 
sweet a temperament of gallantry and good principles 
in him, that I give it to the world, word for word 
(interlineations and all) as I find it. 


I am not insensible, brother Shandy, that when a 
man, whose profession is arms, wishes, as I have done, 
for war— it has an ill aspect to the world ; and that 
how just and right soever his motives and intentions 
may be, he stands in an uneasy posture in vindicating 
himself from private views in doing it. 

For this cause, if a soldier is a prudent man, which 
he may be, without being a jot the less brave, he will 
be sure not to utter his wish in the hearing of an 
enemy ; for, say what he will, an enemy will not be- 
lieve him. He will be cautious of doing it even to a 
friend, lest he may suffer in his esteem : — but if his 
heart is overcharged, and a secret sigh for arms must 
have its vent, he will reserve it for the ear of a 
brother, who knows his character to the bottom, and 
what his true notions, dispositions, and principles of 
honour are ; What, I hope, I have been in all these, 

10 


THE STORY OF 


146 

brother Shandy, would be unbecoming in me to say ; 
much worse, I know, have I been than I ought— and 
something worse, perhaps, than I think : but such as 
I am, you, my dear brother Shandy, who have sucked 
the same breasts with me — and with whom I have 
been brought up from my cradle — and from whose 
knowledge, from the first hours of our boyish pas- 
times down to this, I have concealed no one action of 
my life, and scarce a thought in it — Such as I am, 
brother, you must by this time know me with all 
my vices, and with all my weaknesses, too, whether 
of my age, my temper, my passions, or my under- 
standing. 

Tell me then, my dear brother Shandy, upon which 
of them it is, that when I condemned the peace of 
Utrecht, and grieved the war was not carried on with 
vigour a little longer, you should think your brother 
did it upon unworthy views ; or that in wishing for 
war, he should be bad enough to wish more of his 
fellow creatures slain — more slaves made, and more 
families driven from their peaceful habitations, merely 
for his own pleasure 1 Tell me, brother Shandy, upon 
what one deed of mine do you ground it? [The 
devil a deed do I know of, dear Toby, but one for a 
hundred pounds, which I lent thee to carry on these 
cursed sieges.] 

O brother ! ’tis one thing for a soldier to gather 
laurels, and ’tis another to scatter cypress. [Who 
told thee, my dear Toby, that cypress was used by the 
ancients on mournful occasions ?] 

’Tis one thing, brother Shandy, for a soldier to 
hazard his own life — to leap first down into the trench, 
where he is sure to be cut to pieces : — ’Tis one thing, 
from public spirit and a thirst of glory, to enter the 
breach the first man— to stand in the foremost rank, 
and march bravely on with drums and trumpets, and 
colours flying about his ears : — ’Tis one thing, I say, 
brother Shandy, to do this, and ’tis another thing to 


MY UNCLE TOBY. i 47 

reflect on the miseries of war : to view the desolation 
of whole countries, and consider the intolerable 
fatigues and hardships which the soldier himself, the 
instrument who works them, is forced (for sixpence a 
day, if he can get it) to undergo. 

The Peace created, I say, a sort of shyness betwixt 
my uncle Toby and his hobby-horse. He had no oc- 
casion for him from the month of March to November, 
which was the summer after the articles were signed, 
except it was now and then to take a short ride out, 
just to see that the fortifications and harbour oi 
Dunkirk were demolished, according to stipulation. 

The French were so backward all that summer in 
setting about the affair, that Monsieur Tugghe, the 
deputy from the magistrates of Dunkirk, presented 
so many affecting petitions to the queen, beseeching 
her majesty to cause only her thunderbolts to fall 
upon the martial works, which might have incurred 
her displeasure — but to spare — to spare the mole, for 
the mole’s sake ; which, in its situation, could be no 
more than an object of pity, and the queen (who was 
but a woman) being of a pitiful disposition — and her 
ministers also, they not wishing in their hearts to 
have the town dismantled ; so that the whole went 
heavily on with my uncle Toby ; insomuch, that it was 
not within three full months, after he and the cor- 
poral had constructed the town, and put it in a con- 
dition to be destroyed, that the several commandants, 
commissaries, deputies, negotiators, and intendants, 
would permit him to set about it. Fatal interval of 
inactivity ! 

The corporal was for beginning the demolition, by 
making a breach in the ramparts, or main fortifica- 
tions of the town. — No, that will never do, corporal, 
said my uncle Toby, for in going that way to work 
with the town, the English garrison will not be safe 
in it an hour ; because if the French are treacherous 

10—2 


TEE STORY OF 


148 

— They are as treacherous as devils, an’ please your 
honour, said the corporal — It gives me concern always 
when I hear it, Trim, said my uncle Toby — for they 
don’t want personal bravery ; and if a breach is made 
in the ramparts, they may enter it, and make them- 
selves masters of the place when they please. — Let 
them enter it, said the corporal, lifting up his 
pioneer’s spade in both his hands, as if he was going 
to layabout him with it — let them enter, an’ please your 
honour, if they dare. — In cases like this, corporal, said 
my uncle Toby, slipping his right hand down to the 
middle of his cane, and holding it afterwards trun- 
cheon-wise, with his forefinger extended — ’tis no part 
of the consideration of a commandant what the 
enemy dare, or what they dare not do ; he must act 
with prudence. We will begin with the outworks 
both towards the sea and the land, and particularly 
with Fort Louis, the most distant of them all, and 
demolish it first — and the rest, one by one, both on our 
right and left, as we retreat towards the town ; then 
we’ll demolish the mole — next fill up the harbour, 
then retire into the citadel, and blow it up into the 
air ; and, having done that, corporal, we’ll embark for 
England. We are there, quoth the corporal, recol- 
lecting himself. Very true, said my uncle Toby— 
looking at the church. 

A delusive, delicious consultation or two of this 
kind, betwixt my uncle Toby and Trim, upon the de- 
molition of Dunkirk — for a moment rallied back the 
ideas of those pleasures which were slipping from 
under him : still— still all went on heavily— the magic 
f left the mind the weaker— Stillness, with Silence 
at her back, entered the solitary parlour, and drew 
their gauzy mantle over my uncle Toby’s head ; and 
Listlessness, with her lax fibre and undirected eye, sat 
v. quietly down beside him in his arm-chair. No longer 
Amberg, and Rhinberg, and Limbourg, and Huy, and 
Bonn, in one year— and the prospect of Landen, and 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 149 

Trerebach, and Drusen, and Dendermond, the next — ~\ 
hurried on the blood : no longer did saps, and mines, 
and blinds, and gabions, and palisadoes, keep out 
this fair enemy of man’s repose — No more could my 
uncle Toby, after passing the French lines, as he eat 
his egg at supper, from thence break into the heart of 
France — cross over the Oyes, and with all Picardy 
open behind him, march up to the gates of Paris, and 
fall asleep with nothing but ideas of glory : — no more 
was he to dream, he had fixed the royal standard upon 
the tower of the Bastille, and awake with it stream- 
ing in his head. 

Softer visions — gentler vibrations stole sweetly in 
upon his slumbers ; the trumpet of war fell out of 
his hands — he took up the lute, sweet instrument ! of 
all others the most delicate ! the most difficult ! — how 
wilt thou touch it, my dear uncle Toby ! 




CHAPTER XI. 

THE WIDOW W ADMAN. 

S Susannah was informed by an express from 
Mrs. Bridget, of my uncle Toby’s falling in 
love with her mistress fifteen days before it 
happened— the contents of which express 
Susannah communicated to my mother the next day 
— it has just given me an opportunity of entering 
upon my uncle Toby’s amours a fortnight before their 
existence. 

I have an article of news to tell you, Mr. Shandy, 
quoth my mother, which will surprise you greatly. 

Now my father was then holding one of his second 
beds of justice, and was musing within himself about 
the hardships of matrimony, as my mother broke 
silence. 

— My brother Toby, quoth she, is going to be married 
to Mrs. Wadman. 

— Then he will never, quoth my father, be able to 
lie diagonally in his bed again as long as he lives. 

It was a consuming vexation to my father, that my 
mother never asked the meaning of a thing she did 
not understand. 

— That she is not a woman of science, my father 
would say— is her misfortune — but she might ask a 
question. 

My mother never did. In short, she went out of the 




MY UNCLE TOBY. 


151 

world at last without knowing whether it turned round, ) 
or stood still. My father had officiously told her above 
a thousand times which way it was — but she always 
forgot. 

For these reasons a discourse seldom went on much 
further betwixt themj than a proposition — a reply — • 
and a rejoinder ; at the end of which, it generally 
took breath for a few minutes (as in the affair of the 
breeches) and then went on again. 

If he marries, ’twill be the worse for us, quoth my 
mother. 

Not a cherrystone, said my father — he may as well 
batter away his means upon that, as anything else. 

To be sure, said my mother : so here ended the pro- 
position, the reply, and the rejoinder, I told you of. 

Though the corporal had been as good as his word 
in putting my uncle Toby’s great ramallie-wig into 
pipes, yet the time was too short to produce any great 
effects from it : it had lain many years squeezed up 
in the corner of his old campaign trunk ; and as bad 
forms are not so easy to be got the better of, and the 
use of candle-ends not so well understood, it was not 
so pliable a business as one would have wished. The 
corporal, with cheery eye and both arms extended, had 
fallen back perpendicular from it a score times, to 
inspire it, if possible, with a better air— had spleen 
given a look at it, ’twould have cost her ladyship a 
smile — it curled everywhere but where the corporal 
would have it ; and where a buckle or two, in his 
opinion, would have done it honour, he could as soon 
have raised the dead. 

Such it was, or rather such would it have seemed ' 
upon any other brow ; but the sweet look of goodness 
which sat upon my uncle Toby’s, assimilated every- 
thing around it so sovereignly to itself, and nature 
had moreover wrote Gentleman with so fair a hand in 
every line of his countenance, that even his tarnished 
gold-laced hat and huge cockade of flimsy taffeta 


THJE STORY OF 


152 

became him ; and though not worth a button in them- 
selves, yet the moment my uncle Toby put them on, 
they became serious objects, and altogether seemed to 
have been picked up by the hand of science to set him 
off to advantage. 

Nothing in this world could have co-operated more 
powerfully towards this, than my uncle Toby’s blue 
and gold — had not Quantity in some measure been 
necessary to Grace ; in a period of fifteen or sixteen 
years since they had been made, by a total inactivity 
in my uncle Toby’s life — for he seldom went further 
than the bowling-green — his blue and gold had become 
so miserably too straight for him, that it was with the 
utmost difficulty the corporal was able to get him into 
them ; the taking them up at the sleeves, was of no 
advantage. They were laced however down the back, 
and at the seams of the sides, &c., in the mode of 
King William’s reign ; and to shorten all description, 
they shone so bright against the sun that morning, 
and had so metallic, and doughty an air with them, 
that had my uncle Toby thought of attacking in 
armour, nothing could have so well imposed upon his 
imagination. 

As for the thin scarlet breeches, they had been un- 
ripped by the tailor between the legs, and left at sixes 
and sevens. — 

It is enough they were held impracticable the night 
before, and as there was no alternative in my uncle 
Toby’s wardrobe, he sallied forth in the red plush. 

The corporal had arrayed himself in poor Le Fever’s 
regimental coat ; and with his hair tucked up under his 
Montero cap, whichhe had furbished up fortlie occasion, 
marched three paces distance from his master : a whiff 
of military pride had puffed out his shirt at the wrist; 
and upon that in a black leather thong clipped into a 
tassel beyond the knot, hung the corporal’s stick — My 
uacle Toby carried his cane like a pike. 

It looks well at least ; quoth my father to himself. 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


*53 


My uncle Toby turned bis head more than once 
behind him, to see how he was supported by the 
corporal : and the corporal as oft as he did it, gave a 
slight flourish with his stick — but not vapouringly ; 
and with the sweetest accent of most respectful en- 
couragement, bid his honour “never fear.” 

Now my uncle Toby did fear ; and grievously too : 
and was never altogether at his ease near any one 
of the sex, unless in sorrow or distress ; then infinite 
was his pity ; nor would the most courteous knight \ 
of romance have gone any further, at least upon 
one leg, to have wiped away a tear from a woman’s j 
eye; and yet excepting once that he was beguiled 
into it by Mrs. Wadman, he had never looked sted- 
fastly into one. 

She cannot, quoth my uncle Toby, halting, when 
they had marched up to within twenty paces of Mrs. 
Wadman’s door — she cannot, corporal, take it amiss. 

— She will take it, an’ please your honour, said the 
corporal, just as the Jew’s widow at Lisbon took it of 
my brother Tom. 

And how was that % quoth my uncle Toby, facing 
quite about to the corporal. 

Your honour, replied the corporal, knows of Tom’s 
misfortunes ; but this affair has nothing to do with 
them any further than this, that if Tom had not 
married the widow — or had it pleased God after their 
marriage, that they had but put pork into their 
sausages, the honest soul had never been taken out of 
his warm bed, and dragged to the inquisition,— ’Tis a 
cursed place, added the corporal, shaking his head, — 
when once a poor creature is in, he is in, an’ please your 
honour, for ever. 

; Tis very true ; said my uncle Toby, looking gravely 
at Mrs. Wadman’s house, as he spoke. 

Nothing, continued the corporal, can be so sad as 
confinement for life, or so sweet, an’ please your 
honour, as liberty. 


THE STOUT OF 


i54 

Nothing, Trim, said my uncle Toby, musing. 

Whilst a man is free — cried the corporal, giving a 
flourish with his stick. — 

A thousand of my father’s most subtle syllogisms 
could not have said more for celibacy. 

My uncle Toby looked earnestly towards his cot- 
tage and his bowling-green. > 

The corporal had unwarily conjured up the spirit 
of calculation with his wand : and he had nothing to 
do, but to conjure him down again with his story, and 
in this form of exorcism, most unecclesiastically did 
the corporal do it. 

As Tom’s place, an’ please your honour, was easy, 
and the weather warm, it put him upon thinking 
seriously of settling himself in the world ; and as it 
fell out about that time, that a Jew who kept a 
sausage-shop in the same street, had the ill luck to 
die of a strangury, and leave his widow in possession of 
a rousing trade, Tom thought (as everybody in 
Lisbon w T as doing the best he could devise for himself) 
there could be no harm in offering her his service to 
carry it on : so without any introduction to the 
widow, except that of buying a pound of sausages 
at her shop, Tom set out, counting the matter thus 
within himself, as he walked along ; that let the 
worst come of it that could, he should at least get a 
pound of sausages for their worth — but, if things 
went well, he should be set up ; inasmuch as he should 
get not only a pound of sausages, but a wife, and a 
sausage-shop, an’ please your honour, into the bar- 
gain. 

Every servant in the family, from high to low, 
wished Tom success ; and I can fancy, an’ please your 
honour, I see him this moment with his white dimity 
waistcoat and breeches, and hat a little 0’ one side, 
passing jollily along the street swinging his stick, with 
a smile and a cheerful word for everybody he met : — 
But alas ! Tom ! thou smilest no more, cried the cor- 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


155 

poral, looking on one side of him npon the ground, 
as if he apostrophised him in his dungeon. 

Poor fellow ! said my uncle Toby, feelingly. 

He was an honest, light-hearted lad, an’ please your 
honour, as ever blood warmed. — 

Then he resembled thee, Trim, said my uncle Toby, 
rapidly. 

The corporal blushed down to his fingers’ ends— a 
tear of sentimental bashfulness — another of gratitude 
to my uncle Toby, and a tear of sorrow for his 
brother’s misfortunes, started into his eye and ran 
sweetly down his cheek together ; my uncle Toby’s 
kindled as one lamp does at another ; and taking 
hold of the breast of Trim’s coat (which had been 
that of Le Fever’s) as if to ease his lame leg, but in 
reality to gratify a finer feeling, he stood silent for a 
minute and a half ; at the end of which he took his 
hand away, and the corporal making a bow, went 
on with his story of his brother and the Jew’s 
widow. 

When Tom, an’ please your honour, got to the shop, 
there was nobody in it, but a poor negro girl, with a 
bunch of white feathers slightly tied to / the end of a 
long cane, flapping away flies, not killing them. — ’Tis 
a pretty picture ! said my uncle Toby — she had 
suffered persecution, Trim, and had learnt mercy. 

She was good, an’ please your honour, from nature 
as well as from hardships : and there are circum- 
stances in the story of that poor friendless slut that 
would melt a heart of stone, said Trim ; and some dis- 
mal winter’s evening, when your honour is in the 
humour, they shall be told you with the rest of Tom’s 
story, for it makes a part of it. 

Then do not forget, Trim, said my uncle Toby. 

A Negro has a soul'? an’ please your honour, said 
the corporal (doubtingly). 

I am not much versed, Corporal, quoth my uncle 
Toby, in things of that kind ; but I suppose, God 


156 THE STORY OF 

would not leave him without one, any more than thee 
or me. 

It would be putting one sadly over the head of 
another, quoth the corporal. 

It would so ; said my uncle Toby. Why then, an’ 
please your honour, is a black wench to be used worse 
than a white one ? 

I can give no reason, said my uncle Toby. 

Only, cried the corporal, shaking his head because 
she has no one to stand up for her. 

; Tis that very thing, Trim, quoth my um e Toby, 
which recommends her to protection, and her rethren 
with her ; ’tis the fortune of war which has put the 
whip into our hands now — where it may be hereafter, 
heaven knows ! but be it where it will, the brave, 
Trim ! will not use it unkindly. 

God forbid, said the corporal. 

Amen, responded my uncle Toby, laying his hand 
upon his heart. 

The corporal returned to his story, and went on, 
but with an embarrassment in doing it, which here 
and there a reader in this world will not be able to 
comprehend ; for by the many sudden transitions all 
along, from one kind and cordial passion to another, 
in getting thus far on his way, he had lost the sport- 
able key of his voice which gave sense and spirit to 
his tale : he attempted twice to resume it, but could 
not please himself ; so giving a stout hem ! to rally 
back the retreating spirits, and aiding nature at the 
same time with his left arm a-kimbo on one side, and 
with his right a little extended, supporting her on the 
other — the corporal got as near the note as he could ; 
and in that attitude, continued his story. 

As Tom, an’ please your honour, had no business at 
that time with the Moorish girl, he passed on into the 
room beyond to talk to the J ew’s widow about love, 
and his pound of sausages ; and being, as I have told 
your honour, an open, cheery hearted lad, with his 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


I S7 

character wrote in his looks and carriage, he took a 
chair, and without much apology, but with great 
civility at the same time, placed it close to her at the 
table, and sat down. 

There is nothing so’awkward, as courting a woman, 
an’ please your honour, whilst she is making sausages. 
So Tom began a discourse upon them ; first gravely, 
— “ as how they were made — with what meats, herbs 
and spices ” and so on — taking care only as he went 
along, to season what he had to say upon sausages, 
rather under, than over. 

It was owing to the neglect of that very precaution, 
said my uncle Toby, laying his hand upon Trim’s 
shoulder, that Count de la Motte lost the battle of 
Wynendale : he pressed too speedily into the wood ; 
which if he had not done, Lisle had not fallen into 
our hands, nor Ghent and Bruges, which both followed 
her example ; it was so late in the year, continued my 
uncle Toby, and so terrible a season came on, that if 
things had not fallen out as they did, our troops must 
have perished in the open field. 

Why, therefore, may not battles, an’ please your 
honour, as well as marriages, be made in heaven? 
My uncle Toby mused. 

Religion inclined him to say one thing, and his 
high idea of military skill tempted him to say 
another ; so not being able to frame a reply exactly to 
his mind, my uncle Toby said nothing at all ; and the 
corporal finished his story. 

As Tom perceived, an’ please your honour, that he 
gained ground, and all that he had said upon the sub- 
ject of sausages was kindly taken, he went on to help 
her a little in making them, first by cutting strings 
into proper lengths, and holding them in his hand, 
whilst she took them out one by one ; then by putting 
them across her mouth that she might take them out 
as she wanted them— and so on from little to more. — 
Now a widow, an’ please your honour, always chooses 


THF STORY OF 


158 

a second husband as unlike the first as she can : so 
the affair was more than half settled in her mind 
before Tom mentioned it. — O Sir ! the story will make 
your heart bleed, — as it has made mine a thousand 
times ; but it is too long to be told now ; your 
honour shall hear it from first to last some day when 
I am working beside you in our fortifications ; — but 
the short of the story is this : — when he married the 
Jew’s widow, who kept the small shop, somehow or 
other it was the cause of his being taken in the 
middle of the night out of his bed, where he was 
lying with his wife and two small children, and 
carried directly to the Inquisition, where, God help 
him, continued Trim, fetching a sigh from the bottom 
of his heart, — the poor honest lad lies confined at this 
hour ; — he was as honest a soul, added Trim (pulling 
out his handkerchief), as ever blood warmed. — 

— The tears trickled down Trim’s cheeks faster 
than he could well wipe them away. — A dead silence 
ensued for some minutes. — Certain proof of pity ! 

All womankind, continued Trim (commenting upon 
his story,) from the highest to the lowest, an’ please 
your honour, love jokes ; the difficulty is to know 
how they choose to have them cut ; and there is no 
knowing that, but by trying as we do with our 
artillery in the field. 

I like the comparison, said my uncle Toby. 

Because your honour' quoth the corporal, loves 
glory more than pleasure. 

I hope, Trim, answered my uncle Toby, I love 
mankind more than either ; and as the knowledge of 
arms tends so .apparently to the good and quiet of 
the world, and particularly that branch of it which we 
have practised together in our bowling-green, has no 
object but to shorten the strides of ambition, and 
intrench the lives and fortunes of the few, from the 
plunderings of the many— whenever that drum beats 
in our ears, I trust, corporal, we shall neither of us 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


1 59 


want so much humanity and fellow-feeling as to face 
about and march. 

In pronouncing this, my uncle Toby faced about 
and marched firmly as at the head of his company — 
and the faithful corporal shouldering his stick, and 
striking his hand upon his coat-skirt as he took 
his first step, marched close behind him down the 
avenue. 

Now what can their two noddles be about 1 cried 
my father to my mother — My mother had gone with 
her left arm twisted in my father’s right, till they 
had got to the angle of the old garden wall ; as this 
was directly opposite to the front of Mrs. Wadman’s 
house, when my father came to it, he gave a look 
across ; and seeing my uncle Toby and the corporal 
within ten paces of the door, he turned about — “ Let 
us just stop a moment,” quoth my father, “ and see 
with what ceremonies my brother Toby and his man 
Trim make their first entry — it will not detain us/’ 
added my father, “ a single minute — No matter, if it 
be ten minutes, quoth my mother. 

It will not detain us half a one ; said my father. 

The corporal was just then setting in with the story 
of his brother Tom and the Jew’s widow : the story 
went on, and on — it had episodes in it — it came back, 
and went on, — and on again ; there was no end of it. 

My father stood it out- as well as he could to the 
end of Trim’s story ; and from thence to the end of 
my uncle Toby’s panegyric upon arms, in the chapter 
following it ; when seeing that instead of marching 
up to Mrs. Wadman’s door, they both faced about and 
marched down the avenue diametrically opposite to 
his expectation, he broke out at once with that little 
subacid soreness of humour which, in certain situa- 
tions, distinguished his character from that of all other 
men. 

“ Now what can their two noddles be about V } 
cried my father, &c. 


THE STORY OF 


160 

I dare say, said my mother, they are making forti- 
fications. 

Not on Mrs. Wadman’s premises ! cried my father, 
stepping back. 

I suppose not : quoth my mother. 

I wish, said my father, raising his voice, the whole 
science of fortification at the devil, with all its trum- 
pery of saps, mines, blinds, gabions, fausse-brays and 
cuvetts. — 

They are foolish things— said my mother. 

Now she had a way, which by the bye, I would this 
moment give away my purple jerkin, and my yellow 
slippers into the bargain, if some of your reverences 
would imitate — and that was never to refuse her 
assent and consent to any proposition my father laid 
before her, merely because she did not understand it, 
or had no ideas to the principal word or term of art, 
upon which the tenet or proposition rolled. She con- 
tented herself with doing all that her godfathers and 
godmothers promised for her, but no more ; and so 
would go on using a hard word twenty years together, 
and replying to it too, if it was a verb, in all its 
moods and tenses, without giving herself any trouble 
^ to inquire about it. 

This was an eternal source of misery to my father, 
and broke the neck, at the first setting out, of more 
dialogues between them, than could have done the 
most petulant contradiction — the few which survived 
were the better for the cuvetts — 

“ They are foolish things f said my mother. 

Particularly the cuvetts ; replied my father. 

’Twas enough — he tasted the sweet of triumph and 
went on. 

Not that they are, properly speaking, Mrs. Wad- 
man’s premises, said my father, partly correcting him- 
self — because she is but tenant for life. 

That makes a great difference — said my mother. 

In a fool’s head, replied my father. 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


161 

Unless she should happen to have a child — said my 
mother. 

Though if it comes to that — said my father — Lord 
have mercy upon them. 

Amen : said my mother, piano. 

Amen : cried my father, fortissime. 
m Amen : said my mother again — but with such a 
sighing cadence of personal pity at the end of it, as 
discomfited every fibre about my father — he instantly 
took out his almanack ; but before he could untie it, 
Yorick’s congregation coming out of church, became 
a full answer to one half of his business with it — and 
my mother telling him it was a sacrament day, left 
him as little in doubt, as to the other part — he put 
his almanac into his pocket. 

When my uncle Toby and the corporal had marched 
down to the bottom of the avenue, they recollected 
their business lay the other way ; so they faced about 
and marched up straight to Mrs. Wadman’s door. 

I warrant your honour ; said the corporal, touching 
his Montero-cap, with his hand, as he passed him in 
order to give a knock at the door — My uncle Toby, 
contrary to his invariable way of treating his faithful 
servant, said nothing good or bad : the truth was, he 
had not altogether marshalled his ideas ; he wished 
for another conference, and as the corporal was 
mounting up the three steps before the door, he 
hemmed twice — a portion of my uncle Toby’s most 
modest spirits fled, at each expulsion, towards the 
corporal ; he stood with the rapper of the door sus- 
pended for a full minute in his hand, he scarce knew 
why. Bridget stood perdue within, with her finger 
and her thumb upon the latch, benumbed with expec- 
tation ; and Mrs. Wadman, with an eye ready to be 
deflowered again, sat breathless behind the window- 
curtain of her bedchamber, watching their approach. 

Trim ! said my uncle Toby— but as he articulated the 
word, the minute expired, and Trim let fall the rapper. 


162 


THE STORY OF 


My uncle Toby perceiving that all hopes of a con- 
ference were knocked on the head by it, — whistled 
Lillabullero. 

As Mrs. Bridget opened the door before the cor- 
poral had well given the rap, the interval betwixt 
that and my uncle Toby’s introduction into the 
parlour, was so short ? that Mrs. Wadman had but just 
time to get from behind the curtain, lay a bible upon 
the table, and advance a step or two towards the door 
to receive him. 

My uncle Toby saluted Mrs. Wadman, after the 
manner in which women were saluted by men in the 
year of our Lord God one thousand seven hundred 
and thirteen — then facing about, he marched up 
abreast with her to the sofa, and in three plain words 
— though not before he was sat down— nor after he 
was sat down — but as he was sitting down, told her, 
“ he was in love ” — so that my uncle Toby strained 
himself more in the declaration than he needed. 

Mrs. Wadman naturally looked down — she had been 
darning her apron — in expectation every moment, 
that my uncle Toby would go on ; but having no 
talents for amplification, and love moreover of all 
others being a subject of which he was the least a 
master, when he had told Mrs. Wadman once that 
he loved her, he let it alone, and left the matter to 
work after its own way. 

My father was always in raptures with this system 
of my uncle Toby’s, as he falsely called it, and would 
often say, that could his brother Toby to his process 
have added but a pipe of tobacco— he had where- 
withal to have found his way, if there was faith in a 
Spanish proverb, towards the hearts of half the 
women upon the globe. 

My uncle Toby never understood what my father 
meant ; nor will I presume to extract more from it, 
than a condemnation of an error which the bulk of 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


163 

the world lie under — but the French, every one of 
'em to a man, who believe in it. “ That talking of 
love, is making it.” 

Let us go on : Mrs. Wadman sat in expectation my 
uncle Toby would do so, to almost the first pulsation 
of that minute, wherein silence on one side or the 
other, generally becomes indecent : so edging herself 
a little more towards him, and raising up her eyes, 
sub-blushing, as she did it, she took up the gauntlet, 
or the discourse (if you like it better) and communed 
with my uncle Toby, thus. 

The cares and disquietudes of the marriage state, 
quoth Mrs. Wadman, are very great, I suppose so — 
said my uncle Toby : and therefore when a person, 
continued Mrs. Wadman, is so much at his ease as 
you are, so happy, Captain Shandy, in yourself, your 
friends and your amusements — I wonder, what reasons 
can incline you to the state. 

— They are written, quoth my uncle Toby, in the 
Common Prayer Book. 

Thus far my uncle Toby went on warily, and kept 
within his depth, leaving Mrs. Wadman to sail upon 
the gulf as she pleased. 

As for children— said Mrs. Wadman — though a 
principal end perhaps of the institution, and the 
natural wish, I suppose, of every parent, yet do not 
we all find, they are certain sorrows, and very un- 
certain comforts h and what is there, dear sir, to pay 
one for the heartaches — what compensation for the 
many tender and disquieting apprehensions of a suffer- 
ing and defenceless mother who brings them into life 1 
I declare, said my uncle Toby, smit with pity, I know 
of none ; unless it be that it has pleased God — F eeling 
within himself that he had somehow or other got 
beyond his depth, he stopped short ; and without 
entering further either into the pains or pleasures of 
matrimony, he laid his hand upon his heart, and 

11—2 


THE STORY OF 


164 

made an offer to take them as they were, and share 
them along with her. 

When my uncle Toby had said this, he did not care 
to say it again ; so casting his eye upon the bible which 
Mrs. Wadman had laid upon the table, he took it up • 
and popping, dear soul ! upon a passage in it, of all 
others the most interesting to him — which was the 
siege of Jericho — he set himself to read it over, 
leaving his proposal of marriage, as he had done his 
declaration of love, to work with her after its own 
way. — But there is an accent of humanity — how shall 
I describe it ? — So tenderly spoke to, and so directed 
towards my uncle Toby’s heart, that every item sank 
ten times deeper into it than the evils themselves — 
but when Mrs. Wadman went round about by 
Namut ; and engaged him to attack the point of the 
advanced Counterscarp, and pele mele with the Dutch 
to take the counterguard of St. Boch sword in hand, 
and then with tender notes playing upon his ear, led 
him all bleeding by the hand out of the trench, wiping 
her eye, as he was carried to his tent — Heaven ! earth ! 
sea ! all was lifted up — the springs of nature rose 
above their levels — an angel of mercy sat beside him 
on the sofa — his heart glowed with fire — and had he 
been worth a thousand, he had lost every heart of 
them to Mrs. Wadman. 

My uncle Toby and the corporal had gone on separ- 
ately with their operations the greatest part of the 
campaign, and as effectually cut off from all com- 
munication of what either the one or the other had 
been doing, as if they had been separated from each 
other by the Maes or the Sambre. 

My uncle Toby, on his side, had presented himself 
every afternoon in his red and silver, and blue and 
gold alternately, and sustained an infinity of attacks 
in them, without knowing them to be attacks, and so 
had nothing to communicate. 

The corporal, on his side, in taking Bridget, by it 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


165 

had gained considerable advantages, and consequently 
had much to communicate — Best of honest and gallant 
servants ! 

_ Now my uncle Toby had one evening laid down his 
pipe upon the table, and was counting over to himself 
upon his finger ends (beginning at his thumb), all 
Mrs. Wadman’s perfections one by one ; and happen- 
ing two or three times together, either by omitting 
some, or counting others twice over to puzzle himself 
sadly before he could get beyond his middle finger. — 
Prithee, Trim ! said he, taking up his pipe again. — 
bring me a pen and ink : Trim brought paper also. 

Take a full sheet. Trim ! said my uncle Toby, 
making a sign with his pipe at the same time to take 
a chair and sit down close by him at the table. The 
corporal obeyed, placed the paper directly before him, 
took a pen and dipped it in the ink. 

She has a thousand virtues, Trim ! said my uncle 
Toby. 

Am I to set them down, an’ please your honour ? 
quoth the corporal. 

But they must be taken in their ranks, replied my 
uncle Toby ; for of them all, Trim, that which wins 
me most, and which is a security for all the rest, is 
the compassionate turn and singular humanity of 
her character. 

The corporal dipped the pen a second time into the 
inkhorn ; and my uncle Toby, pointing with the end 
of his pipe as close to the top of the sheet, at the left 
hand corner of it, as he could get it, the corporal 
wrote down the word Humanity.., thus. 

I wish my uncle Toby had been a water-drinker ; 
for then the thing had been accounted for, that the 
first moment widow Wadman saw him, she felt some- 
thing stirring within her in his favour. My uncle 
Toby’s head at that time was full of other matters, so 
that it was not till the demolition of Dunkirk, when 


1 66 


THE STOBT OF 


all the other civilities of Europe were settled, that he 
found leisure to return this. 

This made an armistice (that is speaking with re- 
gard to my uncle Toby — but with respect to Mrs. 
Wadman, a vacancy) of almost eleven years. But in 
all cases of this nature, as it is the second blow, hap- 
pen at what distance of time it will, which makes the 
fray, I choose for that reason to call these the amours 
of my uncle Toby with Mrs. Wadman, rather than 
the amours of Mrs. Wadman with my uncle Toby. 
Now, as widow Wadman did love my uncle Toby, and 
my uncle Toby did not love widow Wadman, there 
was nothing for widow Wadman to do, but to go on 
and love my uncle Toby, or let it alone. 

Widow Wadman would do neither the one nor the 
other. 

The fates, who certainly all foreknew of these 
amours of widow Wadman and my uncle Toby, had, 
from the first creation of matter and motion (and 
with more courtesy than they usually do things of 
this kind) established such a chain of causes and 
effects hanging so fast to one another, that it was 
scarce possible for my uncle Toby to have dwelt in 
any other house in the world, or to have occupied any 
other garden in Christendom, but the very house and 
garden which joined and laid parallel to Mrs. Wad- 
man’s ; this, with the advantage of a thickset arbour 
in Mrs. Wadman’s garden, but planted in the hedge- 
row of my uncle Toby’s, put all the occasions into 
her hands which love-militancy wanted ; she could 
observe my uncle Toby’s motions, and was mistress 
likewise of his councils of war ; and as his unsus- 
pecting heart had given leave to the corporal, through 
the mediation of Bridget, to make her a wicker gate 
of communication to enlarge her walks, it enabled 
her to carry on her approaches to the very door of 
the sentry-box ; and sometimes out of gratitude, 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


1 67 

to make an attack, and endeavour to blow my uncle 
Toby up in the very sentry-box itself. 

Now, through all the lumber-rooms of military 
furniture, including b©th of horse and foot, from the 
great arsenal of Venice to the Tower of London (ex- 
clusive) if Mrs. Wadrnan had been rummaging for 
seven years together, and with Bridget to help her, 
she could not have found any one blind or mantelet so 
fit for her purpose, as that which the expediency of 
my uncle Toby’s affairs had fixed up ready to her 
hands. 

I believe I have not told you — but I don’t know — 
possibly I have — be it as it will, ’tis one of the num- 
ber of those many things, which a man had better do 
over again, than dispute about it — that whatever town 
or fortress the corporal was at work upon, during the 
course of their campaign, my uncle Toby always took 
care on the inside of his sentry-box, which was to- 
wards his left hand, to have a plan of the place, 
fastened up with two or three pins at the top, but 
loose at the bottom, for the conveniency of holding it 

up to the eye, &c as occasions required ; so that 

when an attack was resolved upon, Mrs. Wadrnan had 
nothing more to do, when she had got advanced to 
the door of the sentry-box, but to extend her right 
hand ; and edging in her left foot at the same move- 
ment, to take hold of the map or plan, or upright, 
or whatever it was, and with outstretched neck meet- 
ing it halfway, to advance it towards her ; on which 
my uncle Toby’s passions were sure to catch fire, for 
he would instantly take hold of the other corner of 
the map in his left hand, and with the end of his 
pipe, in the other, begin an explanation. . 

When the attack was advanced to this point, the 
world will naturally enter into the reasons of Mrs. 
Wadman’s next stroke of generalship, which was, to 
take my uncle Toby’s tobacco-pipe out of his hand 
as soon as she possibly could ; which, under one pre- 


i68 


THE STORY OF 


tence or other, but generally that of pointing more 
distinctly at some redoubt or breast-work in the map, 
she would effect before my uncle Toby (poor soul !) 
had well marched above half-a-dozen toises with it. 

This, though slight skirmishing, and at a distance 
from the main body, yet drew on the rest ; for here, 
the map usually falling with the back of it, close to 
the side of the sentry-box, my uncle Toby, in the 
simplicity of his soul, would lay his hand flat upou 
it, in order to go on with his explanation ; and Mrs. 
Wadman, by a manoeuvre as quick as thought, would 
as certainly place hers close beside it ; this at once 
opened a communication, large enough for any senti- 
ment to pass or repass, which a person skilled in the 
elementary and practical part of love-making, has 
occasion for — 

By bringing up her forefinger parallel (as before) 
to my uncle Toby s, it unavoidably brought the whole 
hand. Thine, dear uncle Toby ! was never now in 
its right place — Mrs. Wadman had it ever to take up, 
or, with the gentlest pushings and compressions, that 
a hand to be removed is capable of receiving, to 
get it pressed a hair breadth of one side out of her 
way. 

So that my uncle Toby being thus attacked and 
sore pushed on both his wings, was it a wonder, if 
now and then, it put his centre into disorder V 

The deuce take it ! said my uncle Toby. — 

I think, an’ please your honour, quoth Trim, the 
fortifications are quite destroyed — and the bason is 
upon a level with the mole — I think so too ; replied 
my uncle Toby with a sigh half suppressed — but step 
into the parlour, Trim, for the stipulation, it lies upon 
the table. 

It has lain there these six weeks, replied the cor- 
poral, till this very morning that the old woman kin- 
dled the fire with it. 

Then, said my uncle Toby, there is no further 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


169 

occasion for our services. The more, an’ please your 
honour, the pity, said the corporal ; in uttering which 
he cast his spade into the wheelbarrow, which was 
beside him, with an air the most expressive of dis- 
consolation that can be imagined, and was heavily 
turning about to look for his pickaxe, his pioneer’s 
shovel, his pickets, and other little military stores, in 
orderto carry them off the field — when a heigh ho ! from 
the sentry-box, which, being made of thin slit deal, 
reverberated the sound more sorrowfully to his ear, 
forbad him. 

No ; said the corporal to himself, I’ll do it before 
his honour rises to-morrow morning ; so taking his 
spade out of the wheelbarrow again, with a little 
earth in it, as if to level something at the foot of 
the glacis, but with a real intent to approach nearer 
to his master, in order to divert him, he loosened a 
sod or two, pared their edges with his spade, and 
having given them a gentle blow or two with the back 
of it, he sat himself down close by my uncle Toby’s 
feet, and began as follows. 

It was a thousand pities, though I believe, an’ 
please your honour, I am going to say but a foolish 
kind of a thing for a soldier — 

A soldier, cried my uncle Toby, interrupting the 
corporal, is no more exempt from saying a foolish 
thing, Trim, than a man of letters. — But not so often; 
an’ please your honour, replied the corporal. — My 
uncle Toby gave a nod. 

It was a thousand pities then, said the corporal, 
casting his eye upon Dunkirk, and the mole, as Ser- 
vius Sulpicius, in returning out of Asia (when he 
sailed from iEgina towards Megara) did upon Corinth 
and Pyreus — 

“ It was a thousand pities, an’ please your honour, 
to destroy these works— and a thousand pities to have 
let them stood.” 

Thou art right, Trim, in both cases : said my uncle 


THE STORY OF 


170 

Toby. — This, continued the corporal, is the reason, that 
from the beginning of their demolition to the end, I 
have never once whistled, or sung, or laughed, or 
cried, or talked of passed done deeds, or told your 
honour one story good or bad. 

Thou hast many excellences, Trim, said my uncle 
Toby, and I hold it not the least of them, as thou 
happenest to be a story-teller, that of the number 
thou hast told me, either to amuse me in my painful 
hours, or divert me in my grave ones, thou hast 
seldom told me a bad one. 

Because, an’ please your honour, except one of a 
King of Bohemia and his seven castles, — they are all 
true ; for they are about myself. 

I do not like the subject the worse, Trim, said my 
uncle Toby, on that score ; but prithee what is this 
story *1 thou hast excited my curiosity. 

I’ll tell it your honour, quoth the corporal directly 
— Provided, said my uncle Toby, looking earnestly 
towards Dunkirk and the mole again — provided it is 
not a merry one ; to such, Trim, a man should ever 
bring one half of the entertainment along with him ; 
and the disposition I am in at present would wrong 
both thee, Trim, and thy story.— It is not a merry one 
by any means, replied the corporal. — Nor would I 
have it altogether a grave one, added’my uncle Toby. 
— It is neither the one nor the other, replied the cor- 
poral, but will suit your honour exactly. — Then I’ll 
thank thee for it with all my heart, cried my uncle 
Toby, so prithee begin it, Trim. 

The Story op the King of Bohemia and his 
Seven Castles. 

There was a certain king of Bo — he 

As the corporal was enteringthe confines of Bohemia, 
my uncle Toby obliged him to halt for a single moment; 
he had set out bare-headed, having since he pulled off 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


171 


his Montero cap in the latter end of the last chapter, 
left it lying beside him on the ground. 

The eye of goodness espieth all things — so that 
before the corporal had well got through the first five 
words of his story, had my uncle Toby twice touched 
his Montero cap with the end of his cane, interroga- 
tively, as much as to say, why don't you put it on, 
Trim h Trim took it up with the most respectful 
slowness, and casting a glance of humiliation as he 
did it, upon the embroidery of the forepart, which 
being dismally tarnished and frayed moreover in some 
of the principal leaves and boldest parts of the pattern, 
he laid it down again betwixt his two feet, in order 
to moralize upon the subject. 

’Tis every word of it but too true, cried my uncle 
Toby, that thou art about to observe — 

“ Nothing in this world, Trim, is made to last for 
ever.” 

But when tokens, dear Tom, of thy love and remem- 
brance wear out, said Trim, what shall we say 1 

There is no occasion, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, 
to say anything else ; and was a man to puzzle his 
brains till doomsday, I believe, Trim, it would be 
impossible. 

The corporal perceiving my uncle Toby was in the 
right, and that it would be in vain for the wit of man 
to think of extracting a purer moral from his cap, 
without further attempting it, he put it on ; ancl 
passing his hand across his forehead to rub out a 
pensive wrinkle, which the text and the doctrine 
between them had engendered, he returned, with the 
same look and tone of voice, to his story of the king 
of Bohemia and his seven castles. 

There was a certain king of Bohemia, but in whose 
reign, except his own, I am not able to inform your 
honour. — 

I do not desire it of thee, Trim, by any means, cried 
my uncle Toby. 


J 


THE STORY OF 


172 

It was a little before the time, an’ please your honour, 
when giants were beginning to leave off breeding ; but 
in what year of our Lord that was, — 

I would not give a halfpenny to know, said my uncle 
Toby. 

Only, an’ please your honour, it makes a story look 
the better in the face. 

’Tis thy own, Trim, so ornament it after thy own 
fashion ; and take any date, continued my uncle Toby, 
looking pleasantly upon him — take any date in the 
whole world thou choosest, and put it to — thou art 
heartily welcome. 

The corporal bowed. 

In the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred 
and twelve, there was, an’ please your honour — 

— To tell thee* truly, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, 
any other date would have pleased me much better, 
not only on account of the sad stain upon our history 
that year, in marching off our troops, and refusing to 
cover the siege of Quesnoi, though Fagel was carrying 
on the works with such incredible vigour — but like- 
wise on the score, Trim, of thy own story ; because if 
there are — and which, from what thou hast dropped 
I partly suspect to be the fact — if there are giants 
in it — 

There is but one, an’ please your honour. 

’Tis as bad as twenty, replied my uncle Toby — thou 
should’st have carried him back some seven or eight 
hundred years out of harm’s way, both of critics and 
other people ; and therefore I would advise thee, if 
ever thou tellest it again — 

If I live, an’ please your honour, but once to get 
through it, I will never tell it again, quoth Trim, either 
to man, woman, or child — Poo, poo ! said my uncle 
Toby, but with accents of such sweet encouragement 
did he utter it, that the corporal went on with his story 
with more alacrity than ever. 

There was, an’ please your honour, said the corporal, 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


1 73 

raising liis voice and rubbing the palms of liis two 
bands cheerily together as be began, a certain king of 
Bohemia — 

Leave out the date' entirely, Trim, quoth my uncle 
Toby, leaning forwards, and laying his hand gently 
upon the corporal’s shoulder to temper the interruption 
—leave it out entirely, Trim ; a story passes very well 
without these niceties, unless one is pretty sure of 
’em — Sure of ’em ! said the corporal, shaking his head. 

Right ; answered my uncle Toby, it is not easy, 
Trim, for one, bred up as thou and I have been to 
arms, who seldom looks further forward than to the 
end of his musket, or backwards beyond his knapsack, 
to know much about this matter. — God bless your 
honour ! said the corporal, won by the manner of my 
uncle Toby’s reasoning, as much as by the reasoning 
itself, he has something else to do ; if not on action, 
or a march, or upon duty in his garrison, he has his 
firelock, an’ please your honour, to furbish, his accoutre- 
ments to take care of, his regimentals to mend, himself 
to shave and keep clean, so as to appear always like 
what he is upon the parade ; what business, added 
the corporal triumphantly, has a soldier, an’ please 
your honour, to know anything at all of geography. 

— Thou would’st have said chronology, Trim, said my 
uncle Toby ; for as for geography, ’tis of absolute use to 
him; he must be acquainted intimately with every coun- 
try and its boundaries where his profession carries him; 
he should know every town and city, and village and 
hamlet, with the canals, the roads, and hollow ways 
which lead up to them ; there is not a river or a rivulet 
he passes, Trim, but he should be able at first sight to 
tell thee what is its name — in what mountain.it takes 
its rise — what is its course — how far it is navigable — 
where fordable — where not ; he should know the fer- 
tility of every valley, as well as the hind who ploughs 
it ; and be able to describe, or if it is required, to give 
thee an exact map of all the plains and defiles, the 


THE STORY OF 


174 

forts, the acclivities, the woods and morasses, through 
and by which his army is to march. 

Is it else to be conceived, corporal, continued my uncle 
Toby, rising up in his sentry-box, as he began to 
warm in this part of his discourse, how Marlborough 
could have marched his army from the banks of the 
Maes to Belburg ; from Belburg to Kerpenord — (here 
the corporal could sit no longer) from Kerpenord, 
Trim, to Kalsaken ; fromKalsakentoNewdorf ; from 
Newdorf to Landenbourg : from Landenbourg to 
Mildenheim ; from Mildenheim to Elchin gen ; from 
Elchingen to Gin gen ; from Gingen to Balmerchoffen ; 
from Balmerchoffen to Skellenburg, where he broke 
in upon the enemy’s works ; forced his passage over 
the Danube ; crossed the Lech— pushed on his troops 
into the heart of the empire, marching at the head of 
them through Friburg, Hokenwert, and Schonevelt, 
to the plains of Blenheim and Hochstet ? — Great as 
he was, corporal, he could not have advanced a step 
or made one single day’s march without the aid of 
geography. As for chronology, I own. Trim, continued 
my uncle Toby, sitting down again coolly in his 
sentry-box, that of all others, it seems a science which 
the soldier might best spare, was it not for the lights 
which that science must one day give him, in deter- 
mining the invention of powder h and the Chinese, 
added my uncle Toby, embarrass us, and all accounts 
of it, still more, by boasting of the invention some 
hundreds of years even before him. 

They are a pack of liars, I believe, cried Trim. 

They are somehow or other deceived, said my uncle 
Toby, in this matter, as is plain to me from the present 
miserable state of military architecture amongst them ; 
which consists of nothing more than a fosse with a 
brick wall without flanks — and for what they give us 
as a bastion at each angle of it, ’tis so barbarously 
constructed, that it looks for all the world — Like one 
of my seven castles, an’ please your honour, quoth 
Trim. 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


x 75 

My uncle Toby, though in the utmost distress for a 
comparison, most courteously refused Trim's offer, till 
Trim telling him, he had half-a-dozen more in Bohe- 
mia, which he knew not how to get off his hands, my 
uncle Toby was so touched with the pleasantry of 
heart of the corporal, that he discontinued his disser- 
tation upon gunpowder, and begged the corporal 
forthwith to go on with his story of the King of 
Bohemia and his seven castles. 

This unfortunate King of Bohemia, said Trim — Was 
he unfortunate then 1 cried my uncle Toby, for he 
had been so wrapped up in his dissertation upon gun- 
powder and other military affairs, that though he had 
desired the corporal to go on, yet the many interrup- 
tions he had given, dwelt not so strong upon his 
fancy, as to account for the epithet — Was he unfortu- 
nate then, Trim % said my uncle Toby, pathetically — 
The corporal, wishing first the word and all its 
synonimas at the devil, forthwith began to run back 
in his mind the principal events in the King of Bohe- 
mia’s story ; from every one of which, it appearing 
that he was the most fortunate man that ever existed 
in the world — it put the corporal to a stand : for not 
caring to retract his epithet, and less to explain it, 
and "least of all, to twist his tale (like men of lore) to 
serve a system, he looked up in my uncle Toby’s face 
for assistance — but seeing it was the very thing, my 
uncle Toby sat in expectation of himself, after a hum 
and a haw, he went on — 

The King of Bohemia, an' please your honour, 
replied the corporal, was unfortunate, as thus — that 
taking great pleasure and delight in navigation and 
all sort of sea affairs, and there happening through- 
out the whole kingdom of Bohemia, to be no seaport 
town whatever — 

How the deuce should there. Trim ? cried my uncle 
Toby ; for Bohemia being totally inland, it could have 
happened no otherwise — It might ; said Trim, if it 
had pleased God. 


THE STORY OF 


1 76 

My uncle Toby never spoke of the being and 
natural attributes of God, but with diffidence and 
hesitation. 

I believe not, replied my uncle Toby, after some 
pause — for being inland, as I said, and having Silesia 
and Moravia to the east ; Lusatia and Upper Saxony 
to the north ; Franconia to the west ; and Bavaria to 
the south : Bohemia could not have been propelled to 
the sea without ceasing to be Bohemia — nor could the 
sea, on the other hand, have come up to Bohemia, 
without overflowing a great part of Germany, and 
destroying millions of unfortunate inhabitants who 
could make no defence against it — Scandalous ! cried 
Trim — Which would bespeak, added my uncle Toby, 
mildly, such a want of compassion in him who is 
the father of it, that, I think, Trim, the thing could 
have happened no way. 

The corporal made a bow of unfeigned conviction ; 
and went on. 

Now the King of Bohemia with his queen and 
courtiers happening one fine summer’s evening to 
walk out — Aye ! there the word happening is right, 
Trim, cried my uncle Toby ; for the King of Bohemia 
and his queen might have walked out, or let it alone ; 
’twas a matter of contingency, which might happen, 
or not, just as chance ordered it. 

King William was of opinion, an’ please your 
honour, quoth Trim, that everything was predestined 
for us in this world ; insomuch that he would often 
say to his soldiers, that “every ball had its billet.” 
He was a great man, said my uncle Toby — And I 
believe, continued Trim, to this day. that the shot 
which disabled me at the battle 01 Landen, was 
pointed at my knee for no other purpose, but to take 
me out of his service, and place me in your honour’s, 
where I should be taken so much better care of in 
my old age— It shall never, Trim, be construed other- 
wise, said my uncle Toby. 


My uncle tony. 


*11 

The heart, both of the master and the man, were 
alike subject to sudden overflowings ; — a short silence 
ensued. 

Besides, said the corporal, resuming the discourse, 
but in a gayer accent — if it had not been for that 
single shot, I had never, an’ please your honour, been 
in love. So, thou wast once in love, Trim ! said my - 
uncle Toby, smiling. 

Souse ! replied the corporal— over head and ears, 
an’ please your honour. Prithee when ] where % and 
how came it to pass 1 I never heard one word of it 
before, quoth my uncle Toby : I daresay, answered 
Trim, that every drummer and serjeant’s son in the 
regiment knew of it. — It’s high time I should — said 
my uncle Toby. 

Your honour remembers with concern, said the 
corporal, the total rout and confusion of our camp 
and army at the affair of Landen ; everyone was left 
to shift for himself ; and if it had not been for the 
regiments of Wyndham, Lumley, and Galway, which 
covered the retreat over the bridge of JSTeerspeeken, 
the king himself could scarce have gained it — he 
was pressed hard, as your honour knows, on every 
side of him. 

Gallant mortal ! cried my uncle Toby, caught up 
with enthusiasm — this moment, now that all is lost, I 
see him galloping across me, corporal, to the left, to 
bring up the remains of the English horse along with 
him to support the right, and tear the laurel from 
Luxembourg’s brows, if yet ’tis possible — I see him 
with the knot of his scarf just shot off, infusing fresh 
spirits into poor Galway’s regiment, riding along the 
line, then wheeling about, and charging Conti at the 
head of it. Brave ! brave by heaven ! cried my uncle 
Toby — he deserves a crown — As richly, as a thief a 
halter ; shouted Trim. 

My uncle Toby knew the corporal’s loyalty ; — other- 
wise the comparison was not at all to his mind — it did 

12 


THE STOUT OF 


178 

not altogether strike the corporal’s fancy when he had 
made it, but it could not be recalled, so he had nothing 
to do but proceed. 

As the number of wounded was prodigious, and no 
one had time to think of anything, but his own safety. 
— Though Talmash, said my uncle Toby, brought off 
the foot with great prudence — But I was left upon 
the field, said the corporal. — Thou wast so ; poor 
fellow ! replied my uncle Toby — So that it was noon 
the next day, continued the corporal, before I was 
exchanged, and put into a cart with thirteen or four- 
teen more, in order to be conveyed to our hospital. 

There is no part of the body, an’ please your honour, 
where a wound occasions more intolerable anguish 
than upon the knee. — 

Except the groin ; said my uncle Toby. An’ please 
your honour, replied the corporal, the knee, in my 
opinion, must certainly be the most acute, there being 
so many tendons and what-d’ye-call-’ems all about it. 
f The dispute was maintained with amicable and 
equal force betwixt my uncle Toby and Trim for some 
time ; till Trim at length recollecting that he had 
often cried at his master’s sufferings, but never shed a 
| tear at his own, was for giving up the point, which 
my uncle Toby would not allow — ’Tis a proof of 
nothing, Trim, said he, but the generosity of thy 
[ temper. 

So that whether the pain of a wound in the groin 
( cceteris paribus) is greater than the pain of a wound 
in the knee — or 

Whether the pain of a wound in the knee is not 
greater than the pain of a wound in the groin — are 
points which to this day remain unsettled. 

The anguish of my knee, continued the corporal, 
was excessive in itself ; and the uneasiness of the 
cart, with the roughness of the roads, which were 
terribly cut up, making bad still worse, every step 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


179 

was death to me : so that with the loss of blood, and 
the want of care-taking of me, and a fever I felt 
coming on besides — (Poor soul ! said my uncle Toby) 
all together, an’ please your honour, was more than I 
could sustain. 

I was telling my sufferings to a young woman at a 
peasant’s house, where our cart, which was the last of 
the line, had halted ; they had helped me in, and the 
young woman had taken a cordial out of her pocket 
and dropped it upon some sugar, and seeing it had 
cheered me, she had given it me a second and a third 
time — So I was telling her, an’ please your honour, 
the anguish I was in, and saying it was so intolerable 
to me, that I had much rather lie down upon the bed, 
turning my face towards one which was in the corner 
of the room, and die, than go on, when, upon her 
attempting to lead me to it, I fainted away in her 
arms. She was a good soul ! as your honour, said the 
corporal, wiping his eyes, will hear. 

I thought love had been a joyous thing, quoth my 
uncle Toby. 

’Tis the most serious thing, an’ please your honour 
(sometimes) that is in the world. 

By the persuasion of the young woman, continued 
the corporal, the cart with the wounded men set off 
without me : she assured them I should expire im- 
mediately if I was put into the cart. So when I came 
to myself, I found myself in a still quiet cottage, with 
no one but the young woman, and the peasant and 
his wife. I was laid across the bed in a corner of the 
room, with my wounded leg upon a chair, and the 
young woman beside ne, holding the corner of her 
handkerchief dipped in vinegar to my nose with one 
hand, and rubbing my temples with the other. 

I took her at first for the daughter of the peasant 
(for it was no inn) — so had offered her a little purse 
with eighteen florins, which my poor brother Tom 

12—2 


t8o 


TRF STORY OF 


(here Trim wiped his eyes) had sent me as a token, by 
a recruit, just before he set out for Lisbon. 

The young woman called the old man and his wife 
into the room, to show them the money, in order to 
gain me credit for a bed and what little necessaries 
I should want, till I should be in a condition to be 
got to the hospital — Come then ! said she, tying up 
the little purse — I’ll be your banker— but as that 
office alone will not keep me employed, I’ll be your 
nurse too. 

I thought by her manner of speaking this, as well 
as by her dress, which I then began to consider more 
attentively, that the young woman could not be the 
daughter of the peasant. 

She was in black down to her toes, with her hair 
concealed under a cambric border, laid close to her 
forehead : she was one of those kind of nuns, an’ 
please your honour, of which, your honour knows, 
there are a good many in Flanders which they let go 
loose — By thy description, Trim, said my uncle Toby, 
I daresay she was a young Beguine, of which there are 
none to be found anywhere but in the . Spanish 
Netherlands — except at Amsterdam — they differ from 
nuns in this, that they can quit their cloister if they 
choose to marry ; they visit and take care of the 
sick by profession — I had rather, for my own part, 
they did it out of good nature. 

She often told me, quoth Trim, she did it for the 
love of Christ — I did not like it. — I believe, Trim, 
we are both wrong, said my uncle Toby — we’ll ask 
Mr. Yorick about it to-night at my brother Shandy’s, 
so put me in mind ; added my uncle Toby. 

The young Beguine, continued the corporal, had 
scarce given herself time to tell me “ she would be 
my nurse,” when she hastily turned about to begin 
the office of one, and prepare something for me, and 
in a short time, though I thought it a long one, she 
came back with flannels, &c., &c., and having fomented 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


181 

my knee soundly for a couple of hours, &e., and 
made me a thin basin of gruel for my supper, she 
wished me rest, and promised to be with me early in 
the morning. She wished me, an’ please your honour, 
what was not to be had. My fever ran very high 
that night — her figure made sad disturbance within 
me — I was every moment cutting the world in two, , 
to give her half of it— and every moment was I cry- 
ing, that I had nothing but a knapsack and eighteen \ 
florins to share with her. The whole night long was 
the fair Beguine, like an angel, close by my bed side, 
holding back my curtain and offering me cordials, and 
I was only awakened from my dream by her coming 
there at the hour promised, and giving them in 
reality. In truth, she was scarce ever from me, ' 
and so accustomed was I to receive life from her 
hands, that my heart sickened, and I lost colour when ) 
she left. 

But ’tis no marvel, continued the corporal, seeing 
my uncle Toby musing upon it — for love, an’ please 
your honour, is exactly like war, in this ; that a 
soldier, though he has escaped three weeks complete 
o’ Saturday night, may nevertheless be shot through 
his heart on Sunday morning. It happened so here, 
an’ please your honour, with this difference only, that 
it was on Sunday in the afternoon, when I fell 
in love all at once with a sisserara — it burst upon me, 
an’ please your honour, like a bomb, scarce giving me 
time to say “ God bless me.” 

I thought, Trim, said my uncle Toby, a man never 
fell in love so very suddenly. 

Yes, an’ please your honour, if he is in the way of 
it — replied Trim. 

I prithee, quoth my uncle Toby, inform me how 
this matter happened. • 

With all pleasure, said the corporal, making a bow. 

I had escaped, continued the corporal, all that time 
from falling in love, and had gone on to the end of 


THE STOUT OF 


182 

the chapter had it not been predestined otherwise — 
there is no resisting our fate. 

It was on a Sunday, in the afternoon, as I told your 
honour — 

The old man and his wife had walked out — 

Everything was still and hush as midnight about 
the house — 

There was not so much as a duck or a duckling 
about the yard — 

When the fair Beguine came in to see me. 

My wound was then in a fair way of doing well 
— the inflammation had been gone off for some time, 
but it was succeeded with an itching both above and 
below my knee, so insufferable, that I had not shut 
my eyes the whole night for it. 

Let me see it, said she, kneeling down upon the 
ground parallel to my knee, and laying her hand upon 
the part below it. — It only wants rubbing a little, 
said the Beguine ; so covering it with the bed 
clothes, she began with the forefinger of her right 
hand to rub under my knee. 

She continued rubbing for a good while ; it then 
came into my head, that I should fall in love. I 
blushed when I saw how white a hand she had — I 
shall never, an’ please your honour, behold another 
hand so white whilst I live. 

The young Beguine, continued the corporal, per- 
ceiving it was of great service to me, then rubbed 
with her whole hand : I will never say another word, 
an’ please your honour, upon hands again, but it 
was softer than satin. 

Prithee Trim, commend it as much as thou wilt, 
said my uncle Toby ; I shall hear thy story with 
more delight.— The corporal thanked his master most 
unfeignedly ; but having nothing to say upon the 
Beguine’s hand, but the same over again, he proceeded 
to the effects of it. 

The fair Beguine, said the corporal, continued rub- 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


183 


bing till I feared her zeal would weary her— “I 
would do a thousand times more,” said she, “ for the 
love of Christ.” — I perceived, then, I was beginning 
to be in love. — I seized her hand. — 

And then, thou clappedst it to thy lips, Trim, said 
my uncle Toby — and madest a speech. 

Whether the corporal’s amour terminated in the way 
my uncle Toby described it, is not material ; it is 
enough that it contained in it the essence of all the 
love romances which ever have been wrote since the 
beginning of the world. 




CHAPTER XII. 


THE SENTRY-BOX. 



S soon as the corporal had finished the 
story of his amour, or rather my uncle 
Toby for him, Mrs. Wadman silently sallied 
forth, passed the wicker gate, and ad- 
vanced slowly towards my uncle Toby's sentry-box : 
the disposition which Trim had made in my uncle 
Toby's mind, was too favourable a crisis to be let 
slipped. 


The attack was to be determined upon : it was 
facilitated still more by my uncle Toby’s having 
ordered the corporal to wheel off the pioneer’s shovel, 
the spade, the pickaxe, the pickets, and other mili- 
tary stores which lay scattered upon the ground where 
Dunkirk stood— The corporal had marched— the field 
was clear. 


Now if ever plan, independent of all circumstances, 
deserved registering in letters of gold (I mean in the 
archives of Gotham)— it was certainly the plan of 
Mrs. Wadman’s attack of my uncle Toby in his sentry- 
box, by plan— Now the plan hanging up in it at this 
juncture, being the plan of Dunkirk, and the tale of 
Dunkirk a tale of relaxation, it opposed every im- 
pression she could make. 



MY UNCLE TOBY. 


185 

0 ! let woman alone for this. Mrs. Wadman had 
scarce opened the wicker-gate, when she formed a 
new attack in a moment. 

1 am half distracted, Captain Shandy, said Mrs. 
Wadman, holding up her cambric handkerchief to 
her left eye, as she approached the door of my uncle 
Toby’s sentry-box — a mote, or sand, or something, I 
know not what, has got into this eye of mine— do 
look into it — it is not in the white— 

In saying which, Mrs. Wadman edged herself close 
in beside my uncle Toby, and squeezing herself down 
upon the corner of his bench, she gave him an oppor- 
tunity of doing it without rising up. — Do look into it 
— said she. 

Honest soul ! thou didst look into it with as much 
innocency of heart as ever child looked into a raree 
show-box : and ’twere as much a sin to have hurt 
thee. 

If a man will be peeping of his own accord into 
things of that nature — I’ve nothing to say to it. 

My uncle Toby never did ; and I will answer for 
him, that he would have sat quietly upon a sofa from 
June to January, with an eye as fine as the Thra- 
cian Rodope’s beside him, without being able to Jell, 
whether it was a black or a blue one. 

The difficulty was to get my uncle Toby, to look at 
one at all. 

’Tis surmounted. And 

I see him yonder with his pipe pendulous in his 
hand, and the ashes falling out of it, looking, and 
looking, then rubbing his eyes, and looking again, 
with twice the good nature that ever Galileo looked 
for a spot in the sun. 

In vain ! for by all the powers which animate the 
organ, widow Wadman’s left eye shines this moment 
as lucid as her right — there is neither mote, or sand, 
or dust, or chaff, or speck, or particle of opaque matter 


THE STOEY OF 


1 86 

floating in it — there is nothing, my dear paternal 
uncle ! but one lambent delicious fire, furtively shoot- 
ing out from every part of it, in all directions, into 
thine — 

— If thou lookest, uncle Toby, in search of this mote 
one moment longer — thou art undone. 

I protest, Madam, said my uncle Toby, I can see 
nothing whatever in your eye. 

It is not in the white ; said Mrs. Wadman : my uncle 
Toby looked with might and main into the pupil. 

^ Now of all the eyes, whichever were created — from 
your own, madam, up to those of Venus herself — there 
never was an eye of them all, so fitted to rob my uncle 
Toby of his repose, as the very eye at which he was 
looking — it was not, madam, a rolling eye — a romping 
or a wanton one — nor was it an eye sparkling, petulant 
or imperious, of high claims and terrifying exactions, 
which would have curdled at once that milk of human 
nature, of which my uncle Toby was made up — but 
' ’twas an eye full of gentle salutations, and soft re- 
sponses — speaking, not like the trumpet-stop of some 
ill-made organ, in which many an eye I talk to, holds 
) coarse converse, but whispering soft, like the last low 
accents of an expiring saint — “ How can you live 
comfortless, Captain Shandy, and alone, without a 
bosom to lean your head on — or trust your cares to V’ 

It was an eye — 

But I shall be in love with it myself, if I say another’ 
word about it. 

It did my uncle Toby’s business — 

There is nothing shows the characters of my father 
and my uncle Toby, in a more entertaining light, than 
their different manner of deportment, under the same 
accident — for I call not love a misfortune, from a 
persuasion, that a man’s heart is ever the better for it 
— Great God ! what must my uncle Toby’s have been, 
l when 'twas all benignity without it. 

My father, as appears from many of his papers, was 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


187 

very subject to this passion, before he married — but 
from a little subacid kind of drollish impatience in 
his nature, whenever it befell him, he would never 
submit to it like a Christian ; but would pish, and 
huff, and bounce, and kick, and play the devil, and 
write the bitterest philippics against the eye that ever 
man wrote. — In short, during the whole paroxysm, my 
father was all abuse and foul language, approaching 
rather towards malediction — yet never concluded his 
chapter of curses upon it, without cursing himself into 
the bargain, as one of the most egregious fools and 
coxcombs, he would say, that ever was let loose in the 
world. 

My uncle Toby, on the contrary, took it like a lamb 
— sat still and let the poison work in his veins without 
resistance — in the sharpest exacerbations of his wound 
(like that on his groin) he never dropped one fretful 
or discontented word — he blamed neither heaven nor 
earth, or thought or spoke an injurious thing of any- 
body, or any part of it ; he sat solitary and pensive 
with his pipe, looking at his lame leg, then whiffing 
out a sentimental heigh ho ! which, mixing with the 
smoke, incommoded no one mortal. 

He took it like a lamb, I say. 

The world is ashamed of being virtuous, my uncle 
Toby knew little of the world ; and therefore when 
he felt he was in love with widow Wadman, he had 
no conception that the thing was any more to be made 
a mystery of, than if Mrs. Wadman had given him a 
cut with a gapped knife across his finger : had it been 
otherwise — yet as he ever looked upon Trim as a 
humble friend; and saw fresh reasons every day of 
his life, to treat him as such, it would have made no 
variation in the manner in which he informed him of 
the affair. 

“ I am in love, corporal ! ” quoth my uncle Toby. 

In love ! — said the corporal — your honour was very 
well the day before yesterday, when I was telling your 


i88 


THE STORY OF 


honour the story of the King of Bohemia — Bohemia ! 
said my uncle Toby .... musing a long time. What 
became of that story, Trim ? 

We lost it, an’ please your honour, somehow betwixt 
us — but your honour was as free from love then, as I 
am — ’twas, just whilst thou went’st off with the wheel- 
barrow — with Mrs. Wadman, quoth my uncle Toby 
— She has left a ball here— added my uncle Toby, 
pointing to his breast — 

She can no more, and please your honour, stand a 
siege, than she can fly — cried the corporal — 

But as we are neighbours,^ Trim, the best way I 
think is to let her know it civilly first — quoth my 
uncle Toby. 

Now if I might presume, said the corporal, to differ 
from your honour — 

Why else, do I talk to thee, Trim : said my uncle 
Toby, mildly— 

Then I would begin, an 7 please your honour, with 
making a good thundering attack upon her, in return, 
and telling her civilly afterwards, for if she knows 
anything of your honour’s being in love, beforehand 
— L — d help her ! she knows no more at present of it, 
Trim, said my uncle Toby — than the child unborn. 

Now, quoth the corporal, setting his left hand a 
kimbo, and giving such a flourish with his right, as 
just promised success, and no more — if your honour 
will give me leave to lay down the plan of this attack — 

Thou wilt please me by it, Trim, said my uncle Toby, 
exceedingly — and as I foresee thou must act in it as 
my aide-de-camp, here’s a crown, corporal, to begin 
with, to steep thy commission. 

Then, an’ please your honour, said the corporal 
(making a bow first for his commission) — we will begin 
with getting your honour’s laced clothes out of the 
great campaign trunk, to be well-aired, and have the 
blue and gold taken up at the sleeves, and I’ll put 
your white Bamallie wig fresh into pipes, and send 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 189 

for a tailor, to have your honour’s thin scarlet breeches 
turned. 

1 had better take the red plush ones, quoth my uncle 
Toby. 

Thou wilt get a brush and a little chalk to my 
sword. 

And your honour’s two razors shall be new set — and 
I will get my Montero cap furbished up, and put on 
poor Lieutenant Le Fever’s regimental coat, which 
your honour gave me to wear for his sake— and as 
soon as your honour is clean shaved, and has got your 
clean shirt on, with your blue and gold, or your fine 
scarlet— sometimes one and sometimes t’other— and 
everything is ready for the attack — we’ll march up 
boldly, as if ’twas to the face of a bastion ; and whilst 
your honour engages Mrs. Wadman in the parlour, to 
the right, I’ll attack Mrs. Bridget in the kitchen, to 
the left ; and, having seized that pass, I’ll answer for 
it, said the corporal, snapping his fingers over his head 
— that the day is our own. 

I wish I may but manage it right ; said my uncle 
Toby — but I declare, corporal, I had rather march up 
to the very edge of a trench. 


As the ancients agree, brother Toby, said my father, 
that there are two different and distinct kinds of love , 
according to the different parts which are affected by 
it, — the brain or liver, — I think when a man is in love 
it behoves him a little to consider which of the two 
he is fallen into. 

...What signifies it, brother Shandy, replied my 
uncle Toby, which of the two it is, provided it will 
but make a man marry, and love his wife, and have a 
few children 

...A few children ! cried my father, rising out of his 
chair, and looking full in my mother’s face, as he 
forced his way betwixt hers and Dr. Slop’s— a few 


igd 


TRIE STORY OR 


children ! cried my father, repeating my uncle Toby’s 
words, as he walked to and fro — 

Not, my dear brother Toby, cried my father, re- 
covering himself all at once, and coming close up to 
the back of my uncle Toby’s chair, - not that I should 
be sorry hadst thou a score : — on the contrary, I 
should rejoice, — and be as kind, Toby, to every one of 
them as a father. 

My uncle Toby stole his hand, unperceived, behind 
his chair, to give my father’s a squeeze. 

There is, at least, said Yorick, a great deal of reason 
and plain sense in Captain Shandy’s opinion of love : 
and ’tis among the ill-spent hours of my life, which I 
have to answer for, that I have read so many flourish- 
ing poets and rhetoricians in my time, from whom I 
never could extract so much... 

I wish, Yorick, said my father, you had read Plato ; 
for there you would have learnt that there are two 
loves ... I know there were two religions , replied Yorick, 
among the ancients : — one for the vulgar, — and another 
for the learned ; — but I think one love might have 
served both of them very well... 

It could not, replied my father,— and for the same 
reasons ; for, of these loves, according to Ficinus’s 
comment upon Velacius, the first is ancient, — without 
mother, — the second begotten of Jupiter and Dione... 

Pray brother, quoth my uncle Toby, what has a 
man who believes in God to do with this 1. . .My father 
could not stop to answer, for fear of breaking the 
thread of his discourse. 

This latter, continued he, partakes wholly of the 
nature of Venus. 

( The first, which is the golden chain let down from 
Heaven, excites to love heroic, which comprehends in 
it, the desire of philosophy and truth the second — 

I think the having children as beneficial to the 
) world, said Yorick, as the finding out of the longitude. 


MY UNCLE TOLY. 


* 9 * 

To be sure, said my mother, love keeps peace in the 
world... 

In the house — my dear, I own... 

It replenishes the earth, said my mother. . . 

But it keeps Heaven empty,— my dear, replied my 
father. . . 

’Tis Virginity, cried Slop, triumphantly, which fills 
paradise... 

Well pushed, nun ! qtioth my father... 

My father had such a skirmishing, cutting kind of 
a slashing way with him in disputations, thrusting 
and ripping, and giving every one a stroke to remem- 
ber him by in his turn, — that if there were twenty 
people in company,— in less than half an hour he was 
sure to have every one of ’em against him. 

What did not a little contribute to leave him thus 
without an ally was that if there were anyone post more 
untenable than the rest he would be sure to throw 
himself into it ; and, to do him justice, when he was 
once there, he would defend it so gallantly that 
’twould have been a concern, either to a brave man, 
or a good-natured one, to have seen him driven out. 

Yorick, for this reason, though he would often 
attack him, — yet could never bear to do it with all 
his force. 

Doctor Slop’s Virginity had got him for once on 
the right side of the rampart, and he was beginning 
to blow up all the convents in Christendom about 
Slop’s ears, when Corporal Trim came into the par- 
lour to inform my uncle Toby, that his thin scarlet 
breeches, in which the attack was to be made upon 
Mrs. Wadman, would not do ; for, that the tailor, in 
ripping them up, in order to turn them, had found 
they had been turned before — Then turn them again, 
brother, said my father rapidly, for there will be 
many a turning of ’em yet before all’s done in the 
affair— They are as rotten as dirt, said the corporal — 
Then by all means, said my father, bespeak a new 


TKF STOUT OF 


tQ2 

pair, brother — for though I know, continued my 
father, turning himself to the company, that widow 
Wadman has been deeply in love with my brother 
Toby for many years, and has used every art and cir- 
cumvention of woman to outwit him into the same 
passion, yet now that she has caught him, her fever 
will be passed its height. — 

She has gained her point. 

In this case, continued my father, which Plato, I am 
persuaded, never thought of — Love, you see, is not so 
much a sentiment as a situation, into which a man 
enters, as my brother Toby would do, into a corps, no 
matter whether he loves the service or no — being 
once in it, he acts as if he did. 

The hypothesis, like the rest of my father’s, was 
plausible enough, and my uncle Toby had but a 
single word to object to it, in which Trim stood ready 
to second him — but my father had not drawn his con- 
clusion— - 

F or this reason, continued my father (stating the 
case over again), notwithstanding all the world knows, 
that Mrs. Wadman affects my brother Toby, and my 
brother Toby contrariwise affects Mrs. Wadman, and 
no obstacle in nature to forbid the music striking up, 
yet will I answer for it that this self-same tune will 
not be played this twelvemonth. 

We have taken our measures badly, quoth my 
uncle Toby, looking up interrogatively in Trim’s face. 

I would lay my Montero cap, said Trim — Now 
Trim’s Montero cap, as I once told you, was his 
constant wager ; and having furbished it up that very 
night, in order to go upon the attack — it made the 
odds look more considerable — I would lay, an’ please 
your honour, my, Montero cap to a shiiling — was it 
proper, continued Trim (making a bow) to offer a 
wager before your honours. — 

There is nothing improper in it, said my father — 
’tis a mode of expression ; for in saying thou would’st 


MY UNCLE TOBY. 


193 

lay thy Montero cap to a shilling, all thou meanest 
is this, that thou believest— 

— Now, what do’st thou believe ? 

That widow Wadman, an’ please your worship, can- 
not hold it out ten days 

_ After a series of attacks and repulses in a course of 
nine months in my uncle Toby’s quarter, my uncle 
Toby, honest man ! found it necessary to draw off his 
forces and raise the siege most indignantly. The 
shock he received in this affair with the widow Wad- 
man fixed him in a resolution never more to think of 
the sex. 


Here my heart stops me to pay to thee, my dear 
uncle Toby, once for all, the tribute I owe thy good- 
ness. Here let me thrust my chair aside, and kneel 
down upon the ground whilst I am pouring forth the 
warmest sentiments of love for thee, and veneration 
for the excellency of thy character, that ever virtue and 
nature kindled in a nephew’s bosom. Peace and com- ) 
fort rest for evermore upon thy head ! Thou enviedst 
no man’s comforts, insulted no man’s opinions. Thou 
blackened’st no man’s character, devoured’st no man’s 
bread ; gently, with faithful Trim behind thee, didst 
thou amble round the little circle of thy pleasures, 
jostling no creature in thy way ; for each one’s sorrow 
thou hadst a tear, for each man’s need thou hadst a 
shilling ! 


The corporal— 

Tread lightly on his ashes, ye men of genius, for he 
was your kinsman : 

Weed his grave clean ! ye men of goodness — for he 
was your brother. Oh corporal ! had I thee, but now 
— now, that I am able to give thee a dinner and pro- 
tection— how would I cherish thee ! thou should’st 

13 


194 


THE STOUT OF MY UNCLE TOBY. 




wear thy Montero cap every hour of the day, and 
every day of the week — and when it was worn out, I 
would purchase thee a couple like : but alas : alas : 
alas : now that I can do this, in spite of their 
reverences, the occasion is lost, for thou art gone ; thy 
genius fled up to the stars from whence it came ; and 
that warm heart of thine, with all it’s generous and 
open vessels, compressed into a clod of the valley h 


But what — what is this, to that future and dreaded 
page, where I look towards the velvet pall, decorated 
with the military ensigns of thy master — the first — 
the foremost of created beings ; where, I shall see 
thee, faithful servant ! laying his sword and scabbard 
with a trembling hand across his coffin, and then 
returning pale as ashes to the door, to take his 
mourning horse by the bridle, to follow his hearse, as 
he directed thee where — all my father’s systems 
shall be baffled by his sorrows ; and, in spite of his 
philosophy, I shall behold him, as he inspects the 
lackered plate, twice taking his spectacles from off 
his nose to wipe away the dew which nature has shed 
upon them. When I see him cast in the rosemary 
with an air of disconsolation, which cries through my 
ears. Oh Toby ! in what corner of the world shall I 
seek thy fellow 1 

Whilst I am worth a shilling to pay a weeder, thy 
path from thy door to thy bowling-green shall never 
be grown up. Whilst there is a rood and a half of 
land in the Shandy family, thy fortifications, my dear 
uncle Toby, shall never be demolished ! 


THE END. 


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